The Board ought to set limits on money for travel and lunch. The federal government has set a meals rate here in Hampton Roads of $40 a day. I believe lunch is $18 of that. The Board must set policies which make sense... but again, I don�t know the specifics of the incident you bring up.
In terms of philosophy, I believe that all training & professional development must support Board-set goals. Everything is linked. See the Criteria for Performance Excellence, again.
9. Given that over 50% of Portsmouth in covered in non-taxable property (government and church related), our tax base is unlikely to ever be sufficient to properly run our various essential units of government unless we find funding resources that are entirely "out of the box". Any ideas?
This is a tough one. We ought to be considering seeking grants (which I know the system does). Perhaps we ought to look to do more partnering with local businesses, perhaps going outside the City to regional businesses (such as Ford with the plant in Norfolk). Not sure I have other notions at this time; I'll keep thinking about this.
10. My contention is that PPS primary failures are due to personnel problems. We have the ultimate prototype of the Peter Principle in action. We have a number of totally incompetent, and a few corrupt, principals. We have overwhelming incompetence at a number of other higher level positions. If the school board takes a "hands off" policy of letting the "professionals" make the decisions, we have MAJOR problems. If we ever get the guts to truly clean house, then perhaps that philosophy has merit. In the meantime, the accusation of "micromanaging" seems to scare off the board on each and every issue of any importance. As presently constituted, THERE IS NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER TO EVEN HAVING A BOARD. I would contend that we need our elected officials to "micromanage" until we have a staff in place that can simply manage. Your comments?
This is the leadership versus management issue. I continue to believe the Board is primarily a leadership body. The role of a leader is to set the values, direction, and goals; the role of a leader is to help in the development of initiatives to meet the goals; the role of a leader is to review and track progress; the role of a leader is to get people to do (and want to do) something they might not necessarily want to do in a way in which the leader will be able to get them to do over and over again.
The Board must determine shared values for their own operation. The Board must then live by them. Then the Board must establish their vision for the future, set goals, and then help the managers.
If people are incompetent, then we must hold them accountable. That goes for the paid, professional members of the schools, and it goes for the Board.
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