Professionalism

A Word from Our Steering Committee Chair on Board Professionalism

We as a Steering Committee see this school as a resource we are developing not just for our own children, but we intend to develop a strong foundation that will be a resource for many generations of families in the Greenwood area. Our Principal, Mrs. Joan Gore, is working very hard to provide a strong faculty and school policies that will serve the school and its families for many years. The Steering Committee is also working hard to make sure its method of doing business as a fledgling board sets a foundation that will serve future classes of our elected School Board well.

We see the makeup and practices of the School Board as critical to the long-term success of Palmetto Christian Academy, and as a result, we are educating ourselves on the best practices of school boards. An effective board must educate itself and evaluate its own performance regularly.

We recently reviewed some of the conclusions of Chait, Holland, and Taylor in Improving the Performance of Governing Boards. They conclude that the most effective governing boards of educational institutions practice the following six competencies:

1. The board understands and takes into account the culture and norms of the organization it governs.
2. The board takes the necessary steps to ensure that trustees are knowledgeable about the institution, the profession, and the board’s roles, responsibilities, and performance.
3. The board nurtures the development of trustees as a working group, attends to the board’s collective welfare, and fosters a sense of cohesiveness.
4. The board recognizes the complexities and subtleties of issues and accepts ambiguity and uncertainty as healthy preconditions for critical discussion.
5. The board accepts as a primary responsibility the need to develop and maintain healthy relationships among major constituencies.
6. The board helps the institution envision a direction and shape a strategy.

In response to some of the training we have received, we are beginning to plan our meeting agendas around our institutional distinctives. This will help us maintain focus on our core values as we make decisions and plan for the long term health of Palmetto Christian Academy. As we begin succession planning in anticipation of an elected board in the fall of 2008, we are developing a culture of professionalism and best practices for our board.

- Randy Cain MD
Chairman of the Steering Committee