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International School of Belgrade BoardAdmin Retreat September 7, 2013

I participated in the annual Board of Trustees Administration retreat. Leading the day was Adele

Hodgson, who is the Strategic Advisor to the European Council of International Schools (ECIS) and leads

the ECIS Consultancy Services and works with many school boards in international schools in Europe and

the Middle East. Adele has worked with our Board of Trustees and our community with the Strategic

Plan of 2011-2016 for the past couple of years. It is great to hear her perspective because she works

with so many schools and we get a quality benchmark with the other schools.

Key Ideas / Vocabulary

N.I.F.O. (pronounced neeefoo)Noses in - feet outboard members should ask lots of questions and

make observations but dont get your sleeves rolled up and heavily involved regarding the operational

versus strategic.

Confidentiality is vital and board members need to think about what they say to their spouses and an

unfortunate remark has done lots of damage in schools.

Avoid the false yes because the board member wants to fit in and not be labeled as a nuisance. Thereis rarely 100% consensus and it is OK to disagree, but once the decision is made, then support in public.

Representational mindset Board members think they are representing either a nationality, a

program (ex - Lower School, or mathematics) and this is damaging to the Board and school. Members

should have the good of the entire school in mind and not act as a lobbyist for their agenda.

Structured onboarding Orientation for new board member and they arrive with a packet with past

minutes, interviews with key players, and assigning of a mentor. Without this, sometimes boards have a

two-tier system with veterans in the know and rookies on the outside.

Board Cloud A web site for book recommendations, articles posted, that Board members can read

articles and even have a board meeting just to discuss interesting articles. Live stream open board

meetings, town hall meetings are dead!

Climate SurveysThese are hugely important and give data to schools instead of anecdotal evidence.

High Anxiety InstitutionsHospitals and schools are high anxiety institutions because they deal with

the unknown, are unsure about outcomes, and schools especially are dealing with the most precious

commodity of parents, their children. Other aspects are the transient nature of the community;

international schools are under more scrutiny because stay-at-home moms have lots of time on their

hands. An example of a low anxiety institution is civil service/government job.

Change needs time, two examples from our school are Dragon Dispatch readership and Tennis Courts

Use

Fundamental Psychological / Behavioral Traps

Adele shared these traps from the IDM Business School in Switzer land. There are three traps which

are below:

1) Leader / Control Trap dispropartionate influence by 1-2 board members who may haveexperience, articulate, rich, etc.

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2) Happy Family / Support Trap everyone too suportive, not raising the red flag; everything isgood enough and no crisis

3) Argumentative / Broken Relations trust breaks down, dsyfunctional boardThe latest movement is metrics and dashboard management and each institution must define what

information is important. These can help schools get out of complacency but it needs to be done

correctly.

Two Types of Boardroom Conflict

1) CognitiveDynamic Tension (task-orientated, healthy for value-added decision making)2) AffectivePersonal Agendas (emotional, focused on personal differences, or short comings,

corrosive for good dialogue)

Anonymous Case Study Notes

The strategic issues facing the school are as follows:

1)

Facilities2) Marketing (tuition, enrollment)3) Curriculum (IB, NEASC Accreditation)4) Board Structure (training, charter)5) Salary & Benefits (reduce turnover)

Boardroom Dynamics

Two things you think are essential to constructive dynamics in a school in the Boardroom

Future-orientation - (board comes and goes especially expats, must think in long-term) Varied experience and backgrounds (govt connection, local , moms, other schools) Ready to devote time to thinking before the meetings Trust / open-minded Trust the committees, dont get bogged down in the details Meeting protocol with good, quality information Support decisions No surprises

Board Time Allocation

Board Activity In Committee Whole Board

Auditing and Monitoring Performance Chair X low

Parent & Student Issues Director/Principals

Director Compensation, Mentoring and Evaluation Chair mostly X

Shaping Strategy X

Budgeting and Risk Management Finance

Facilities Facilities T.F.

External Relations (accreditation, govt., Development X

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Guidelines for Committees

Set a regular cycle of meetings, 10-12 working days before the BoT meeting, the committees should be

meeting. Finance is an easy one. If you dont meet regularly, then perhaps you dont need a committee.

The committees should be looking at the Board Goals and parceling out those goals to each committee.Some should be made for the Task Force. Committees send written report and they only accept

questions. Members should read them before and come with questions. The Chair of the committee

should be confident that all have read it.

The ISB BoT has committees for Finance, Facilities, Governance & Policy, and Development.

Documents sent to BoT on Friday for a Wednesday meeting.

Sometimes boards appoint a member just for the political or economic clout they possess and they are

not involved on a committee level.

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H.I.G. is one of the recent private equity companies that are purchasing international schools; the

market is growing and has a reasonable return on investment.

Energized exciting work of international school Data Collection / Metrics / in our society looking into the future Belgrade-Serbia very different...five years ago Are we alone? Can we learn from similar situations?