Consultant finds Elko County board is 'developing,' recommends focus on strategic-goal data

Balanced Governance Solutions presented the results of an intensive board evaluation, telling the Elko County School District Board of Trustees that the board rated itself and was rated by external observers as a "developing" board and recommending several procedural changes to focus board time on strategic goals.

Dr. Talal Allsbury, the consultant, described a three-part evaluation: an 81-indicator self-assessment, individual trustee assessments and an external observation-based review of meetings benchmarked against high-performing boards. "The result of all of those parts of that evaluation was that the board was rated and rated itself as a developing board," Allsbury told trustees.

Allsbury highlighted two principal recommendations. First, he advised the board and superintendent to co-develop a revised board handbook that calendarizes district strategic goals, specifies the data to be collected for each goal, and schedules when that data will be presented to the board so trustees can spend a majority of meeting time asking, "Are we making progress on our strategic goals?" Second, he recommended meeting-practice adjustments to ensure all trustees' viewpoints are heard and to support equitable representation of the districts each trustee serves.

Trustees described the process as rigorous and useful. One trustee said the evaluation had been "eye opening," and several praised the board members' willingness to participate in individual coaching sessions; Allsbury said each trustee engaged in one-on-one coaching and prepared individual improvement plans.

Ending: Trustees accepted the report and asked staff and consultant to produce the revised handbook and a calendarized data-report plan for future meetings.