Categories: News

New tool will measure boards’ progress in effective governance

&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"margin-bottom&colon; 0&period;0001pt&semi;"><span size&equals;"1" face&equals;"Times New Roman" style&equals;"font-family&colon; arial&comma; helvetica&comma; sans-serif&semi;"><span><img class&equals;" alignright size-full wp-image-1417" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;schoolnewsnz&period;fastrackdev&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;SND14-wk4-NZSTA-Lorraine&lowbar;Kerr&period;jpg" alt&equals;"SND14-wk4-NZSTA-Lorraine Kerr" style&equals;"margin&colon; 5px&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"203" &sol;>The New Zealand School Trustees Association &lpar;NZSTA&rpar; is developing an online self-assessment tool that will allow individual boards of trustees to measure where they are at in terms of the governance of their school&comma; NZSTA President Lorraine Kerr says&period;<&sol;span><&sol;span> &Tab;&Tab;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p> &Tab;&Tab; <&excl;--more--> &Tab;&Tab;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The tool&comma; which is based on the NZSTA governance rubric&comma; will not only allow boards to measure or benchmark where they are at in terms of their capability in the four key areas that make up effective governance&comma; but will also identify the areas where improvements need to be made&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This will also allow NZSTA to identify overall strengths and weakness in school governance at a national level&comma; thus enabling resources&comma; professional development and support to be better targeted by NZSTA&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Another real benefit of the tool will be that it can also be used by boards to measure the improvement or &&num;8216&semi;value added&&num;8217&semi; that occurs over any given period at the individual board level&period; Boards will be able to take ownership of information relating to their own school&comma; which will remain confidential to them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It will also allow NZSTA to measure the improvement of value added over time in an aggregated form across a particular geographical area or even nationally&period; This will enhance NZSTA&&num;8217&semi;s ability to review resources to better support identified needs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ms Kerr says attempting to measure or benchmark boards&&num;8217&semi; capability in their key governance role in a really meaningful way is quite difficult&comma; but NZSTA believes this tool will do it in a way that will be both credible and extremely useful for boards&period; Being able to provide an aggregate picture of overall governance competence at any particular point in time will also be advantageous&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>NZSTA expects to be in a position to offer the assessment tool online by the mid-year&period; This is a further step towards fulfilling NZSTA&&num;8217&semi;s vision that all schools are effectively governed by a board of trustees whose primary focus is every student achieving their highest-possible educational potential&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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Rosie Clarke

Rosie is the managing editor here at Multimedia Pty Ltd, working across School News New Zealand and School News Australia. She has spent 10+ years in B2B journalism, and has spent some time over the last couple of years teaching as a sessional academic. Feel free to contact her at any time with editorial or magazine content enquiries.

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