Disagreement, Harmful Impact, & Agenda Redesign

TESBC: Board non-alignment hampers organizational alignment, and organizational non-alignment harms efforts to improve student outcomes. There's a relationship with the topics you bring up. That said, if you are referring to Grissom's, "Is Discord Detrimental" paper, you may be misinterpreting the evidence.

My summary of that paper is that unintentional conflict -- a collision of interests, whether task-oriented or relationship-oriented, that wasn't planned -- is harmful to organizational alignment. Unintentional conflict, and the organizational non-alignment it cultivates, appears to harm both perceptions of effectiveness (a significant finding) and organizational achievement of Goals (less significance, but still worth noting). But much of the disagreement in school board meetings is quite intentional. Intentional conflict can be very healthy for organizational alignment.

Spirited debate during board meetings on an item's alignment with Goals/Guardrails occurs by design; it's intentional conflict. That some people then vote one way and others vote another occurs by design; it's intentional conflict. Disagreement on the alignment of an item and subsequent split decision votes are not necessarily evidence of the discord Grissom cites. They're most often evidence of a school board working exactly as designed. And the evidence doesn't suggest that intentional conflict -- people seeing things differently and debating it in the regular course of conducting board business -- is harmful. There also doesn't appear to be evidence that board members being friends is important, or hanging out together is important, or even liking each other is important. Board members can strongly dislike each other and still engage in disagreements that are intended and intentional -- disagreements that can actually generate organizational alignment rather than diminish it.

So regarding the original question, board members disagreeing on policy and other board matters isn't something I'd coach them away from. If anything, I'd coach them toward it. As long as it's happening before the vote is taken and the nature of the debate is topical rather than personal, I don't see evidence that the disagreements are in fact hurting their district. But if the disagreements wander outside of those parameters, then yes, they could in fact be harmful in which case I'd invite them to read Grissom's paper.

TESBC: This isn't uncommon. I suspect you're dealing with a board member who wanted Goals that the board didn't adopt and/or wanted Interim Goals that the superintendent didn't adopt. So now, not having gotten the things they want through the designed routes, they are looking to get what they wanted in a way that violates what the board has committed to. They're likely coming from a place of wanting to bring justice to a particular student group, but the way they're going about it is creating a toxic school system culture. Good intentions; harmful impact. So for situations like this, it's important to both validate their intentions while reinforcing boundaries that protect against unintended impacts. Here's a simplified example (not an exemplar, just one example) to get you started:

TESBC: This is a common starting point for many clients -- often even before they've adopted their Goals and Guardrails. Here's the process we use.

Step 1: You will need an actual board meeting agenda in front of you to complete this process and ideally you'll walk through these steps with the full board (or, at minimum, the board officers). If the meeting has already happened, identify the total amount of time spent during the meeting. Ideally, use the minutes or the video from the meeting to identify the exact amount of time spent on each agenda item.

Step 2: Review every agenda item one by one -- don't skip anything. For each item, ask the board members: "Is this item focused on student outcomes?" They'll need confirmation on exactly what we mean by that. An item is considered focused on student outcomes if the board is either a) setting Goals about student outcomes or b) monitoring progress toward Goals about student outcomes. So if as a result of going through the item, board members have more information about student growth relative to a Goal, then it's almost certainly focused on student outcomes. If that is not the case, the item is almost certainly not focused on student outcomes. At the end of this process, it's common that every single item is marked "No".

If the school board has not yet adopted Goals, then see if any student outcomes exist — whether in a strategic plan, a turnaround plan, or similar location — and practice this process using that objective until Goals are adopted.

Step 3: Have the board members go back through the agenda and decide for every item marked, "No", whether to (K)eep, (D)elete, or (M)odify the item. Mark each item with a K, D, or M. If they choose (M)odify, write down the modification and the new, anticipated time use.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 over and over until at least 50% of the meeting time is focused on student outcomes.

In the last newsletter, we shared about two school boards that are considering what to do about a social media post by their joint superintendent. Even after a closed meeting to discuss, they did not make any announcement, though the superintendent had apparently been placed on leave. You recommend checking to see whether any clauses in the superintendent's contract address situations of this nature. We agree. Then we'd look to see whether any sections of policy address situations of this nature. If the answer to either of those questions is, 'yes', then the board should follow whatever process they've agreed to. If the answer to both of those questions is, 'no', then the board is simply making a judgment call as to whether any additional action beyond the administrative leave is warranted. There typically isn't a strong rubric for such decisions; it is purely a judgment call on the part of the board.

In this district, the teacher's union alleges that the school board is mismanaging school system funds. What would you do? Go here to share what you would do in this situation. In the next newsletter, we'll share your responses and our coaches' thoughts.

Yet another reminder: training without coaching has marginal impact.

Rick Maloney shares some of the research and his insights regarding both boardsmanship -- the individual work of serving on a board -- and governance -- the work of the board as a whole.

This article suggests what we often coach: if something's not working, start with "I".

Got cognitive biases? We all do. Here's a great visual catalog.

Total Minutes: 136mins

Minutes Focused on Student Outcomes: 118mins

Key Topics: early literacy, board update, admin update

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We are hosting a 30-minute webinar on how the board puts in place policies to help the board steer toward effectiveness and address ineffectiveness.

11am central on Friday, July 11th, 2025

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