NJSBA and the New Jersey Association of School Administrators have developed an intensive training program to improve school district governance. The state Department of Education has endorsed the project, which was unveiled at the Workshop 2006 closing session Oct. 27 in Atlantic City.

Now being piloted in three school districts, the Readiness Curriculum, or Collaborative Governance Project, will prepare school boards and superintendents to work as teams so they can successfully engage in long-term goal-setting and strategic planning.

“Before they take on the monumental task of strategic planning, boards and superintendents must gel so they can better shape the way their districts operate and, ultimately, improve student achievement,” said Edwina M. Lee, NJSBA executive director.

Collaboration The project will later include the participation of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. The Princeton Center for Leadership, a non-profit organization that offers leadership training to schools and communities, serves as a consultant for the Readiness Curriculum project.

“Academic success will require collaboration among boards of education, chief school administrators and principals,” said Lee. “That’s why the three sponsoring associations, which represent these leadership constituencies, are proud to work in unison on this program.”

Nationwide Initiative New Jersey is one of 21 states to participate in the governance project through grants from the Wallace Foundation, a private organization dedicated to improving public school governance and management. The program is part of Wallace’s nationwide State Action for Educational Leadership Project.

The effort identified a need to address board and superintendent turnover and to identify best practices to increase student achievement, explained Cathy Weber, an NJSBA field service representative.

“High functioning teams result in higher student achievement. Conversely, the opposite is true,” she said.

Pilot Districts An essential part of the project involves field testing in school districts in central, northern and southern New Jersey. Weber and fellow field service staff members, Joanne Borin and Jane Kershner, are teaming up with representatives of NJASA to organize the pilot project in the Keyport School District in Monmouth County, North Warren Regional in Warren County, and Elmer in Salem County.

Last summer, the training teams held focus group sessions in the pilot districts and followed up with retreats in September. They now are developing action plans, will hold second retreats in January, and then will determine school district long-range goals.

Future Growth If the pilot projects prove to be effective, the program might become part of a new model offered to all New Jersey school districts and be incorporated into the state’s new monitoring process, Weber said. So far, it’s too early to tell.

“If a district is not meeting its governance criteria, then this would be a model that they could go to for remediation,” she said. “In addition, it may be a model for boards and superintendents in transition...when a new superintendent is appointed or a significant number of new board members are elected.

“It enables a school board to take a proactive, rather than a reactive approach.”