OS recognizes that success in educational programs often depends on the quality of a school board’s performance in providing policy guidance and oversight for school programs. The need for training school board members is particularly vital overseas because of the inordinately high turnover of board members in many locations. Each year, OS arranges for consultants to provide training to individual overseas school boards and to speak at regional conferences of overseas schools. OS also helped fund the publication of The International Trustee Handbook, which was written specifically for the needs of international school boards of trustees around the world.
The Overseas Schools Advisory Council has helped train board members of Department-assisted overseas schools through grants to the regional associations of overseas schools for the following projects:
-
Training for School Board Members is a handbook that continues the work of the earlier Council-sponsored school board training projects. This project provides information on the critical differences and commonalities between school boards in the United States and overseas, thus enabling school heads to work effectively with and provide training to new board members. It is now published on DVD and available upon request from OS.
-
School Board Development, Building a Board that Works offers training material on conflict resolution, goal setting, team building, policy making and understanding the role of an individual board member versus that of a Board as a whole. It can be accessed at www.state.gov/m/a/os/c14019.htm.
-
The Selection of Overseas School Superintendents provides guidelines to school boards in selecting overseas school superintendents. It is now on DVD and available upon request from OS.
