Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Charter School Governing Boards and Nepotism: Is it Ever OK?

Several charter schools in the state have been dealing with nepotism issues. This makes all charter schools look bad when the public generalizes their preceptions about all charter schools based on what they hear in the media about a few errant schools.

It doesn't matter if it's in a school district or in a charter school, when public funds are being used, people must be above repute. Having family members as board members or employees of the school almost always leads to problems. Family members should not supervise each other. This includes governing board members and administrators or even the second person under the lead administrator.

Charter school board members should not be related to each other. In fact, many consider it a best practice to have the school's bylaws stipulate that board members cannot be immediate family members of a school employee or a school employee. The potential for a conflict of interest is too great.

Some authorizers are now requiring new charter school governing boards to uphold certain standards such as no nepotism and no employees of the school on the board. Authorizers increasingly scrutinize proposed bylaws in charter school applications as a means to avert future governance issues by making sure certain provisions are addressed before the charter school is approved. Charter contracts often have proposed bylaws attached as a means of defining what is an acceptable or unacceptable change to the charter. Charter school bylaws should stand as approved by the authorizer unless an amendment to the bylaws is approved at a later date. Amending the bylaws may be a substantive change to the charter that fundamentally alters the vision and mission of the charter school.

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