Governing those who govern

It can't be easy being a school council member....the long meetings, tough issues, plethora of reading and paperwork. Last night's monthly council meeting highlighted the difficulties that our elected representatives face as they pilot JIS toward even greater things.

To their credit, the council is facing the subject of its own governance head on and approaching the situation as "lifelong learners." Setting out the rules that determine how a governing body runs itself is difficult. Old policies and new ones must be reconciled. New ground must be explored. It would be like trying to fly the brand-new Airbus A380 with two manuals -- a new, untested flight manual, and an old one that you know isn't quite right for the new technology. You'd have to do a lot of learning-on-the-fly, so to speak, and that's hard. We should applaud the council's efforts.

So as a parent (and JIS moral owner), I was impressed to hear yesterday about council's work on its governance process. For example, council introduced several proposals for improving current policies on amending executive limitations. (Now, don't nod off in absolute boredom at this point! An "executive limitation" is just Carver Governance Policy language for "the limits that council imposes on the head-of-school to make sure that he/she doesn't use inappropriate means to reach the end goals.")

These new proposals focus on bringing the JIS community into the discussion about amending executive limitations by developing community awareness through:

• posting information on council's website;
• encouraging the community to contact council members for comments and/or input;
• placing notices in the school bulletins stating which policy is being reviewed and reminding community members that they are invited to attend the discussion of that policy at the next council meeting.

These are great proposals! They promote collaboration and input, which is tremendous. But they also put the onus on parents to read the policies, share their opinions, and attend the meetings. That's a pain, but there are some policies that are important enough to be worth the effort.

Notice: the following statement is the equivalent of your doctor telling you to exercise. It is easy to ignore or procrastinate -- but you do so at your own (and in this case, your children's) peril!

GO NOW TO JIS PARENT-NET, CLICK ON THE "SCHOOL COUNCIL" BUTTON, THEN CLICK ON THE "JIS GOVERNANCE" BUTTON. LASTLY, CLICK ON THE "POLICY GOVERNANCE MANUAL" BUTTON TO DOWNLOAD THE MANUAL.

NOW READ IT. Please, do read it. It's not the most scintillating prose ever written, and you might need to use toothpicks to prop your eyes open as you slowly dose off. But every word in its 22 pages affects the educational product that JIS produces.

Well, that's enough soap-boxing for the moment. Tomorrow: the lesson of Julius Caesar and the Ides of March.