Client Meetings, Guardrails vs Directives, & Correlations

TESBC: I've divided my thinking about clients into two buckets: active phase and maintenance phase. While it's not perfect -- each situation will be slightly unique -- I consider active phase clients as those whose quarterly self eval is less than 80% and/or whose monthly time use eval is less than 50%. Once clients exceed those thresholds, I see them as needing less active support for implementation and just occasional support to stay on track.

For active clients, at a minimum, I meet monthly with the board chair (and anyone else they bring) and the superintendent (and anyone else they bring). Some boards have appointed governance/implementation committees. If so, I work with and meet monthly with them instead. This is for reviewing progress and planning based on their implementation timeline and the next meeting's agenda. I typically join the board's monthly meetings (mostly via zoom to save on travel costs) and provide feedback during or shortly after. I also join their quarterly self evaluation and their annual self/supt evals.

For maintenance clients, at a minimum, I communicate with the board chair monthly and the full board quarterly -- even if they no longer request support with their quarterly self eval. I offer to support their annual self/supt evals.

Beyond the minimums for active and maintenance, everything else is completely customized to the needs of the client. I have some clients where the minimum works for them, and others where we have coaches meeting with board members -- both in groups and 1-on-1 -- on a weekly basis.

TESBC: The purpose of Guardrails is to protect the high priority values of the community, not to allow the Board to create operational directives where the Board is selecting the inputs.

The two most common examples of Boards creating directives that are masquerading as Guardrails are “shall not fail” or “shall not operate without.” This double negative lets the board say what the superintendent must do, not what the superintendent must not do because it would be a violation of a community value. Honorable mention goes to this trick: “shall not decline or remain the same.” I’ve been guilty of all of these at some point, so I’ve seen the end result: boards creating operational directives and then getting angry when a specific directive isn't followed. If board members draft a Guardrail with an expectation that now a very specific strategy will be implemented, it probably was a directive masquerading as a Guardrail -- and, more often than not, it probably contains some of the language above.

We often talk about correlation as it relates to interim goals. This article goes deeper into the topic.

Here are two articles suggesting reading improvements in Louisiana and math improvements in Alabama worth paying attention to.

A popular researcher discusses the importance and value of having access to assessments of student performance.

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