School boards delivered a lesson by the Ombudsman
The Ombudsman warns school boards to follow the law and the spirit of the law in enrolment and discipline decisions.
Schools are meant to places of learning. It appears from successive reports by the Ombudsman regarding school board decisions on enrolment and discipline that this is not always the case.
Recently, the Ombudsman found school boards hadn’t achieved a pass mark in the following areas:
- Disciplinary actions: some school boards fail to follow proper procedures in disciplinary actions, such as not considering all options or keeping detailed records
- Enrolment decisions: issues arise when boards do not clearly communicate the reasons behind enrolment decisions, leading to confusion and dissatisfaction among parents
The Ombudsman referred to two case studies, commenting that investigations into St Peter’s College in Auckland and Cashmere High School in Christchurch revealed non-compliance with recommendations, including failure to apologise or provide clear decision-making processes.
There are lessons in these findings for all school boards: understand the legal requirements, follow them and document the decision-making process, not just the decisions.
While this is important, Pillar Four – Compliance of the Four Pillars of Governance Best Practice takes this a step further: directors and boards should consider the spirit of the law rather than just the letter.
The importance of documenting decisions is important in other areas of governance practice, too. For example, with conflicts of interests, the Code of Practice for Directors, to which all IoD members sign up to, requires interests to be recorded, conflicts of interests to be identified, directors to offer to withdraw from the room for decisions on matters on which they are conflicted, and to document this in the board minutes.
One final insight from the Ombudsman’s comments relates to board and director culture. The ability to recognise that a mistake has been made, to fix the issue and to take responsibility for the mistake is an essential trait of high-performing boards.
Individual directors acknowledging an error helps promote openness around the board table, enhances the opportunity to listen to others’ perspectives and, in some cases, change your mind.
Boards collectively need to do the same and demonstrate this publicly. The boards highlighted by the Ombudsman’s case studies missed this opportunity and to connect effectively with their communities.