Sustaining Catholic Schools Through Board Development
FADICA member, and President of the Healey Education Foundation, Christine Healey was recently published in Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice. Co-authored with Greg Geruson, the article was solicited by the Journal following their participation in a Catholic Higher Education Conference last October. In Sustaining Catholic Schools: Ten Essentials for Startup Boards, the authors provide practical and tested methods for improving school governance through the strengthening of Catholic School Boards. One of the essential practices offered by Healey and Geruson is to select board members based on the skills, knowledge and resources needed by the Board in order to achieve their goals as opposed to selecting members simply as representatives of various constituencies. While this practice can feel counterintuitive in our democratic experience, the schools can be more effective when they shift their focus of board recruitment from “who people are” to “what the school needs them to do.” Catholic school leaders and those invested in school improvement will benefit from reading this practical, insightful article. The practices can make a tangible difference in Catholic schools. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to U.S. and international perspectives on Catholic elementary, secondary, and higher education.
