Celebrating Excellence - Meadowridge School

22
Report from the Governance Committee
Structure
The Chair of this Committee is Dr. Daniel Gouws. Committee members for the term
were Mr. John Becker, Mr. Gareth Mason, Mr. Gordon MacIntyre and Mr. Hugh
Burke regularly attending. I would like to thank them all for their valuable input and
hard work during the year.
Policies relating to Board of
Governance issues:
We started off the year with Mr. Gareth Mason, our new
Board member joining the Governance Committee, and
spearheading our Policy Sub-Committee, which has made
progress in formalizing and reviewing policy and protocols
for the Board of Governors.
Constitutional and legal matters:
We continued with the review of the Bylaws of the
Meadowridge School Society, a process that was started
in the previous term. This was a long and tedious task, and
I would like to thank Mr. John Becker, Chairman of the Board
for his significant input and research into this matter.
The proposed Bylaw changes were sent out to the members
of the School Society provoking considerable interest. The
planned Extraordinary General Meeting for approval of the
proposed Bylaw changes did take place but it was determined
that it would be appropriate to allow more time for a dialogue
with the membership and a motion to adopt the new Bylaws.
A second motion accepted for the Governance Committee
to adjourn this topic to the Annual General Meeting set for
September 23, 2009.
In the interim the Board’s Communication Committee is
implementing a process for dialogue with families so that
the intent of the Bylaw changes can be clarified, and so
that concerns can be addressed and shared for discussion.
We feel confident that we now have relevant and up to
date Bylaws that will serve the Society well.
Review of Board structures, CESI
accreditation:
Meadowridge is undergoing a Canadian Educational
Standards Institute (CESI) evaluation this year. CESI has
created different standards and effective practices that they
believe all great schools should have. It was our task to
address the standards that specifically speaks to Governance.
The standard Governance is broken into 10 effective practice
sections with questions to answer for each one. One of the
goals of the CESI accreditation process is for it to be used
authentically as a school improvement document, which
added considerable value to this exercise. Therefore, it was
important to note our areas of strength as well as focus on
the ones that need improving.
Evaluation of the Head of the School:
Considerable work went into crafting a Head Evaluation
Process (as part of the Head Evaluation and Support function),
and we are very thankful for the input from Mr. Gordon
McIntyre in this regard. After various models of assessment
were reviewed we finally decided to create our own document
and process which included the strategic planning goals for
the Headmaster, as well as making use of existing evaluation
instruments. The Head Evaluation and Support Committee
have subsequently met with the Headmaster, and have found
this a very useful process and dialogue, which will now be
used on an ongoing basis.
Annual Board Evaluation:
We have adopted the practice of reviewing and discussing
the individual chapters in the International Trustee Handbook,
at monthly Board meetings throughout the school year, both
to stimulate discussion of a Board’s current practices and to
motivate Board members to familiarize themselves with the
corresponding chapters in the handbook. The idea was to
transform the concept of “Board training” from a once-a-year,
isolated event into an accepted and valuable item on the
Board’s monthly agenda. This process was then expanded
to include and implement a strategic Board assessment process,
which will be ongoing.
Dr. Daniel R Gouws
Chair of the Governance Committee