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Student Outcomes Focused Governance

In May 2024, the Board of Education and Interim Superintendent Misty Her committed to becoming a highly effective governance team focused on student outcomes. 

Over the next two years, the Board will participate in joint training sessions with the superintendent and senior leadership, work sessions, group and one-on-one coaching, and regular board self-evaluations. The Board will draw from research-based best practices and a network of school board members across the country doing similar work. A team of governance coaches from the Council of the Great City Schools, of which Fresno Unified is a member, will provide training and support.

About the Board’s Approach

The Fresno Unified Board of Education and Interim Superintendent Misty Her are committed to improving their governance behaviors and practices to improve student outcomes. Their approach to improving governance is premised on two beliefs: 1) School systems exist to improve student outcomes, and 2) Student outcomes don’t change until adult behaviors change.

Research shows that highly effective school boards can improve student outcomes. Specifically, highly-effective boards:

  • Are laser-focused on improving the student outcomes
  • Listen to their communities and faithfully represent the community’s collective vision and values 
  • Focus on governing, which includes delegating the management of the district to the superintendent
  • Make academically and fiscally responsible decisions
  • Hold themselves, individually and collectively, to high standards of decency, transparency, and accountability
  • Participate in ongoing training and coaching to improve their practice

Additionally, there are four essential behaviors that effective governance teams demonstrate for continuous improvement:

  1. Clarify priorities
    • The Board will review student outcome data and community input on what they want for their schools.
    • The board will draft vision, values, goals, and guardrails based on what they hear and gather community feedback.
  2. Monitor progress
    • The interim superintendent will determine how best to implement the priorities.
    • The school board shifts to monitoring progress to ensure that reality for students increasingly matches the goals.
  3. Align resources
    • The Board ensures that the community's priorities are the primary focus of resource allocation.
    • The Board aligns any recommendations brought before them—such as adopting a budget—to the community's priorities.
  4. Communicate results
    • The Board will regularly report progress against priorities—including student outcome goals—to the public.

It will take up to two years to fully implement all of the changes, but the community can expect to see some changes, such as more focused board meetings, in the short term. Below is the Board's estimated timeline of actions. This timeline will be updated following the Board's goals and guardrails retreat the last weekend of August. 

Fresno Unified Board of Education Implementation

The Fresno Unified Board of Education has identified the following objectives it wants to pursue to increase its focus on improving student outcomes.

Clarify Fresno Unified's Priorities

  • If the School Board is not clear about the “why”, no amount of well debated “how” is likely to make the difference. In addition, the School Board is the community’s representative, not the superintendent. It is important that the Board set the priorities for the district based on their community engagement prior to hiring a new permanent superintendent.

  • The Board will first draft a set of 1-3 SMART goals about what students should know and be able to do. Then the Board will draft a set of 1-3 guardrails describing the community’s non-negotiable values that must be honored.

  • This document describes what that process might look like.

 

 

 

Align Our Superintendent Search Parameters

  • Once the Board has reached (preferably) unanimous agreement on the draft goals and guardrails, then it uses those priorities to design the exact details of the superintendent search. Instead of hiring a superintendent and asking them what the community’s priorities should be, we will create a process that actively excludes from consideration anyone who doesn’t match the priorities of the community.

  • The Board will use the goals and guardrails to design the superintendent search process, including exclusionary criteria. Then the Board will proceed with the search.

  • This document describes what that process might look like.

 

Monitor Student Progress

  • The Board will focus it’s time on monitoring progress toward the goals, ensuring the goals are likely to happen. 

  • The Board will work with an experienced coach to help with improving its governance practices, allowing the Board to focus more of its time on monitoring progress toward its goals for what children should know and be able to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adopted Timeline

Below is an ESTIMATED timeline for implementation through the selection of a new, permanent superintendent. This is subject to change and will be updated. The timeline following the selection of the permanent superintendent will be added at a later date.