QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES
Question: How do you diagnose whether conflict is productive or destructive? -- Coach in California
TESBC: I appreciate the framing of this question because it doesn’t fall into the trap of assuming that conflict is a bad thing. Here are things I look for when determining whether or not to encourage a board chair to intervene.
Student Outcomes or Adult Inputs: If the conversation is authentically focused on student outcomes, I default to letting it ride.
Board Work or Superintendent Work: If the conversation is clearly focused on board work — Goals, Guardrails, or legal requirements — rather than superintendent work, I default to letting things play out.
Hard on Issues or Hard on People: If the conversation is uncomfortable but it’s hammering on the policy/decision before the board rather than beating up the humans involved, I tend to encourage it.
But the more that a conversation is adult inputs focused, superintendent work, or denigrating people — board, staff, or community — then the more likely I am to encourage a board chair to transition the conversation either back to something productive or onward to the next agenda item.
Question: I’m about to introduce an agenda diet. The board chair wants to get her board to at least half the time on Goal monitoring within two months. Is this attainable? -- Coach in New York
TESBC: Attainable? Yes. Likely? No. Sustainable? Questionable. This work is about adult behavior change that is increasingly focused on student outcomes. That can happen quite quickly if the conditions are in place (ie: effective coaching) and the mindset is in place (ie: eager board members and supt). In general though, that’s a marathon not a sprint; we’re replacing old governance habits with more effective governance habits. So while you can get there in two months and have that be durable, it depends on if you can get there in two months without damaging the conditions (ie: everyone’s mad at the coach) or breaking the mindset (ie: board members and/or supt become less willing because of how uncomfortable the pace is).
In short, if you believe the conditions and mindsets to be solid, yes, it’s better to get it done in two months. My guestimate is that this will be true for 1 in 10 boards. For the rest, you’ll need to match the pace of change to the ambient mindset OR inspire a transformation in mindset (in which case that becomes the focus of your coaching for the next 2+ months).
Question: What are your favorite prompts to elicit community values that translate cleanly into Guardrails? -- Coach in Texas
TESBC: Actually, we have a workbook that covers this exact topic, but I’ll give you the short versions during both community listening and then during Goal/Guardrail setting.
During Community Listening: When conducting community listening, I enjoy the multi-Why approach. After the community person answers whatever question the board has chosen to ask, the board member follows up with simply asking, “Why is that important to you?” a few times. Pressing on issues in this way often reveals a value.
During Guardrail Setting: We use a four step process:
Isolate the Value: select a single word that reflects a non-negotiable like safety or inclusion or fiduciary
Scope the Value: add a one word descriptor to it like physical safety or family inclusion or fiduciary compliance
Draft It: try creating a rough draft Guardrail like the superintendent may not… “allow conditions that are physically unsafe for students” or “make major decisions without including impacted family members” or “violate the board’s fiduciary compliance obligations”
Specify It: define or clarify any subjective terms like “unsafe” or “major” or “including” or “obligations”
POLL
What's the hardest thing about being a school board coach?
/
INTERESTING READS & LISTENS
Replace OKR with Goals/Guardrails and much of this advice about how to gain buy-in is still quite relevant.
Rick Maloney offers a great introduction to the concept of boardmanship.
BOARD MEETING ANALYSIS
A subscriber asked us to watch the December meeting of a school board in New York. Here are the highlights from the meeting:
Total Minutes: 73mins (125mins additional were not included since they were in closed session)
Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 0mins
Key Topics: musical presentation, facilities, 125mins of closed session
What Coach Celebrates:
Students were featured early in the meeting (anthem and K–12 music), which reinforced community connection and visibility of student programs.
Executive session motions were properly stated and voted before exiting open session, preserving transparency about the purpose for closure.
What Coach Recommends:
Reserve at least 50% of monthly board meeting time for monitoring progress toward adopted student outcome Goals; add a dedicated monitoring item to the agenda each month and protect it with time-certain scheduling.
Minimize time in executive session to the statutory minimum necessary; where possible, place monitoring before any expected executive session so student-outcomes work is not crowded out.
Shift routine informational reports to written pre-reads
UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES
School Board Coach AMA (Ask Me Anything)
During our monthly free 30-min webinar, we'll kick off the new year with no a holds barred AMA. Whatever questions you’ve always wanted to ask, this is your time!
11am central on Friday, January 9th, 2026
Did you miss last month's 30-minute free webinar? Email Greg for a make-up session on any of our growing list of topics, including governance policy, delegation policy, effective budgeting, superintendent evaluation, professional services management, strategic planning, consent agendas, and more.
BONUS MATERIALS
For paid subscribers, here are links to additional resources (to gain access to the links below, please consider subscribing):
Additional details about the analyzed meeting:
Board Meeting Video
Meeting Agenda
Strategic Plan
Time Use Analysis
Guidance documents related to this issue:
Effective Conflict Navigation
Effective Goal & Guardrail Setting
Time Use Evaluation
Question we can answer? Submit it to our coaches
Want a school board meeting analyzed? Send us the video.
Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe to the newsletter.
Enjoying? Forward this to regional / state / national colleagues