The job of the Board is to represent the citizens and to lead the organization by asking critical questions and by determining and demanding appropriate and excellent organizational performance. To distinguish the Board’s own unique job from the jobs of the CEO and staff, the Board will concentrate its efforts on the following:

1. Determining and using proactive strategies to ensure constructive two-way dialogue for input from students, staff, parents and the citizens as a means to link with the entire community around the Board’s Ends policies.
2. Developing written governing policies that, at the broadest levels, address:

   1. Ends: Organizational impacts, benefits, and end results for specified recipients and their relative worth (what end result is desired for whom and at what cost);
   2. Executive Limitations: Constraints on executive authority which establish the practical, ethical and legal boundaries within which all staff activity and decision-making will take place and be monitored;
   3. Governance Process: How the Board will conceive, carry out and monitor its own work;
   4. Board/CEO Relationship: How authority is delegated and its proper use monitored; the CEO role, authority and accountability.

3. Ensuring that the Ends are the focus of the organizational performance.
4. Advocating on behalf of the organization and the clients it serves.
5. Ensuring
CEO performance through monitoring Ends and Executive Limitations policies.
6. Ensuring Board performance through monitoring Governance Process and Board-CEO Relationship policies.

7. Serving as the independent conscience for the organization by reflecting community values and protecting against bureaucratic indifference through communication and counsel with the CEO.
8. Serving as final district-level decision-maker for appeals that are brought to the Board under state or federal law, contract or established district procedure.

Adopted:  07.07.03

Monitoring Method:          Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:     Annually in August

Lake Washington School District Board of Directors