The Most Important Board Meeting Of The Year

How Summer Planning Helps School Boards Lead with Greater Clarity

By Ruston Pierce
Fundraising & Capital Campaign Manager | Fortify Foundation

Finally, we get to breathe.  School is out. Everything slows down.  It’s time to work on future planning.  Summer is often the ideal time for a board strategic planning meeting. With fewer distractions and a natural midpoint in the year, boards can step back from routine governance and focus on long-term priorities, organizational growth, risk management, and leadership alignment. You could argue the summer planning meeting of the board is the most important meeting of the year.  Therefore, it’s crucial the meeting time is efficient and productive. A well-designed agenda is essential to ensuring the meeting remains both collaborative, and strategic rather than drifting into operational detail and frustrating our school heads. 

An effective board planning agenda balances governance responsibilities with meaningful discussion time, incorporates opportunities for evaluation and feedback, and clearly allocates timing for each topic. The board chair and school leadership team should work together in advance to prioritize objectives and distribute materials early so meeting time is used efficiently.

Getting Ready for the Meeting

Here are some items that should happen before your summer meeting to make sure you are effective with your meeting. The preparation that leads up to the meeting will dictate how successful the meeting will be.  As always, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.  

Send Materials in Advance

Distribute board packets at least one week, preferably two to three weeks in advance, before the meeting so there is plenty of time to focus on discussion rather than presentations.  Include questions with each agenda item for board members to come prepared with answers or additional questions.  Make open discussion and feedback the priority, not just a review of the materials.

Use a Facilitator

A facilitator can help maintain objectivity, encourage participation, and keep discussions focused.  You may be blessed with a board member or staff member who has these skills.  It is also possible you may have to bring in outside help for this.  For example, Fortify Foundation offers free board trainings.  Sometimes it can be helpful to combine a board training alongside summer planning to maximize engaging outside assistance with these meetings. An outside perspective often reveals organizational blind spots and helps to get us back on track. 

Prioritize Discussion Over Reports

Limit routine reporting. We have all been a part of meetings where people just present information that could have easily been provided in a pre-read document.  This is not a good use of anyone’s time.  Strategic meetings should create good conversation which draws out a proper analysis in order to make the right decisions. It should never be just about reporting! This always leads to a passive board filling a role rather than actively building on a mission.

Define Clear Outcomes

Every agenda section should have a defined purpose and expected outcome. This isn’t for the sake of getting what we want, but ensuring the conversation around the section is productive. It is okay if you get some outcomes you weren’t anticipating.  Sometimes meetings lead us to new outcomes.  However, there should be a goal in mind before the meeting ever begins.

Capture Action Items in Real Time

One of the biggest mistakes school boards make is inadequate follow up.  Identify someone in the meeting who is charting action items.  Assign responsibilities and timelines at the end of the meeting to improve accountability and follow-through.

What are the Objectives of a Strategic Planning Meeting?

Common objectives include:

• Reviewing the existing strategic plan for outcomes and/or progress (or perhaps creating one if necessary).  Have we met our goals to this point?
• Evaluating current trends and opportunities for school growth.  Are our school growth goals on track or is there a trend in the market that could alter our goals? Is our plan flexible enough to shift where the need lies?
• Revisiting mission, vision, and core values.  Are they still being met or have we experienced mission drift? 
• Establishing priorities for the coming 12–24 months.  This may mean a change to the strategic plan.
• Aligning board and executive leadership.  It is always a good idea to allocate time for relationship-building between the board and school administration. Scheduling a retreat in the coming year may be a great catalyst for this.
• Identifying resource and budget implications.  Are there any changes to the budget that need to be made to accommodate new or altered goals?
• Board population.  How are we doing with cultivation and onboarding of new members?

Unlike a standard board meeting, a strategic planning session should dedicate most of its time to forward-looking discussion rather than reports and approvals.  As you process through all these items, priority should be placed on action items and timelines, so execution of the planning happens. If this is a new concept to you, here is a draft outline that could help in the future: