The Board-Savvy Superintendent

The Board-Savvy Superintendent's hard-hitting, no-nonsense, advice on school board leadership capitalizes on Houston and Eadie's hands-on experience working with hundreds of boards and superintendents over the past quarter-century. It is a practical, survive-and-thrive book that will help school district leaders-board members, superintendents, and senior administrators-learn to work together successfully in leading their districts in these extraordinarily challenging times.
Filled with detailed, thoroughly tested guidance on how to acquire the skills and knowledge that make up board savvyness, it also addresses how to develop the school board's capacity to produce truly high-impact governance, and how to build a strong, enduring, productive board-superintendent working partnership. The authors take a fresh look at the process of governing, going well beyond the old-fashioned, control-focused "policy governance" approach. Rather than being preoccupied with developing a static structure of policies to distinguish the board's role from the superintendent's, the book describes how the board and superintendent can creatively work together in making decisions about such critical governing "products" as values, vision, mission, and strategic change initiatives.
School district leaders will appreciate The Board-Savvy Superintendent's close look at the "gold standard" for board involvement in school affairs: leading strategic change. The authors go well beyond the conventional long-range planning approach of merely projecting everything a school district is doing for some arbitrary period of 3 or 5 years, which has generated tons of paper and little important change to provide the reader with detailed, practical guidance on engaging school boards creatively and proactively in a much more selective, vision-driven process that actually results in the implementation of strategic change: the Strategic Change Portfolio.

Paul D. Houston, who has served as executive director of the American Association of School Administrators since 1994, has established himself as one of the leading spokespersons for American education through his extensive speaking engagements, published articles and books, and his regular appearances on national radio and television. He worked in schools in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Alabama prior to serving as superintendent of schools in Princeton, New Jersey; Tuscon, Arizona; and Riverside, California. Doug Eadie, president of Doug Eadie & Company in Palm Harbor, Florida, writes, speaks, and consults on public and nonprofit board leadership and the board-CEO partnership. The author of 12 other books, including Extraordinary Board Leadership: The Seven Keys to High-Impact Governance, he has consulted with over 450 boards and CEOs. Before founding his consulting firm, he served as a community college senior executive, chief operating officer of a community services nonprofit, and an ancient history teacher at the secondary level.

Chapter 1 FOREWORD
Chapter 2 PREFACE
Chapter 3 Chapter 1: The Board-Savvy Superintendent In a Nutshell
Chapter 4 Chapter 2: Updating Your Board's Governing Design
Chapter 5 Chapter 3: Involving Your Board in Leading Strategic Change
Chapter 6 Chapter 4: Keeping The Board-Superintendent Partnership Healthy
Chapter 7 Chapter 5: Keeping Up With Your Reading