Your Questions About Board Governance & Administration

 

This page will be a place for your questions and our answers about board governance.  We will post new information as we receive it.  Feel free to ask us a question by filling out the form below.

 

Note: Should we post a question, we will not identify the writer.

Q: Can an ex officio member vote, make motions, or debate?

 

A: Yes, the term "ex officio" refers to a METHOD of sitting with a body, not a CLASS of membership. The term indicates that a person is a member of the board "by virtue of his/her office." The term, in itself, does not imply what rights the person has on the board.  If the rights of ex officio members are to be restricted, that must be done by Board policy or in an organization's bylaws.  If the Board wants ex officio  member to be non-voting, this must be a vote on record--and best if made a policy.  Otherwise, ex officio members have the same rights as elected or appointed members.  In the public schools, the Superintendent, by virtue of this office, is traditionally an ex officio, non-voting member of the school board and all of its committees.

Q: Your newsletter of August 20 mentioned that a superintendent could "place" a student in a charter school. Isn't there a lottery? Isn't the charter school a choice school?

 

A: Yes, chartered public schools select students who choose to apply by lottery (NH and federal law) if there are more students than spaces in any category. Students cannot be "assigned" or "placed."  However, there are 2 ways that the school district controls if a student could attend the charter school: 1) New Hampshire has a 10% cap per student per grade. If a student doesn't make the lottery for the 10% available spaces, a Superintendent or School Board could approve the student attending, if there was a space, under other provisions of law.  NH law also gives special education teams authority to decide if the charter school placement is appropriate. Since Superintendents and School Boards can decide if a student can attend a different public school for various reasons, they could also act on a parent request. Approval to place a student would not override the charter public school's admission procedures, including the lottery. In sum: yes, there is a lottery for NH charter school spaces; yes, parents apply as a choice; yes, a superintendent or school board could agree to place a student if there is an obstacle; and yes, the charter school's admission procedures govern who is accepted and how the lottery works, regardless of the how or who of the application.

Q: What are New Hampshire's charter school guidelines for testing?  Do you recommend testing in the 3rd, 6th and 10th grades, and how are the results used?

 

A: New Hampshire's charter school statute requires that the state's test be given in charter schools. Schools must report their student performance results each year. Charter school applications have a section for describing the school's evaluation plan.

The 3rd, 6th, 10th approach may show trends, but does not help schools really focus on improved learning for individual students as they move from year to year. It's too late at end of grade 3 to find out a student didn't learn to read during grades 1 and 2. It's too late to find out in grade 6 that a student made no learning progress in math during grades 4, 5, and 6.  I recommend much closer following of student achievement--for many reasons. One is to make sure students are not spending time on material they have already mastered and can move ahead. So in areas of literacy --math, reading, writing, spelling-- I personally would recommend base line screening at the beginning of the year; updates during the year 2 or 3 x, and a year-end assessment, translating this into into a finely-tuned plan for each student's learning that guarantees we really help students become literate in basic areas before middle school.