As a follow-up to the selection process which led to the hiring of Superintendent Dr. Mark Daniel, Dowagiac Board of Education met at the Wolverine Building Monday evening with Dr. Craig Misner of the Michigan Leadership Institute for a “Governance 101” orientation retreat.

“This is a really neat town and a school district with some good things going on,” Misner said. “When I met with community leaders, there are a lot people, like the hospital and college, that want to see this community move forward. You have a lot of potential here.”

Misner, who has been in southwest Michigan for 45 years, including 22 as a school superintendent, said, “This is you first year together with your new ‘supe.’ One thing that’s really important with a new superintendent and a board is communication protocols. I’m sure the district is a child-centered culture where the board comes with one pure motivation — to serve the best interests of children. No other agendas. All meetings and discussions focus on what’s best for students. When you can fall back on that, it helps.”

The board and the CEO (superintendent) should have what can best be described as an “interdependent” relationship.

“You and Mark are a team,” Misner said. “You’re not dependent or independent. It is your responsibility as a board to be good stewards of finances and of students’ interests. That’s why you’re elected by the public. You hired Mark for professional management. It’s his responsibility to follow through with things you set policy, goals and objectives for. He needs to have room to do that.

“It wouldn’t hurt, with Mark being new, to review your mission statement to see if it needs to be updated. It’s really important in this day and age to determine how you’re going to evaluate yourselves as a board and how you’re going to evaluate Mark and his success in the district. Data’s big, but there are other things besides data — and I know your guys’ No. 1 criteria is student achievement. I’ve heard over and over that’s huge. You have to put that in place so you have the organization for the outcomes you want and what it’s going to take to get there.”

Relationships must be based on trust, loyalty and respect.

“I can see you’re off to a really good start,” he said. “Trust, loyalty and respect take time, so that’s something you need to continue to work on. Some of my former board members are some of my best friends, even now. There are districts where everything is a 4-3 vote, people don’t get along with each other and can hardly sit at the same table because I’ve been in them doing this work. We had to have some frank discussions, which you don’t like to do.”

Of striving for strong, durable linkages with the community, Misner commented, “You’ve done a lot of work over the years, and Mark has targeted that, too. Folks want to attract business and industry and you’ve got a lovely hospital, but people do look at test scores. I think people out there are crying for it.”

Another measure is being proactive rather than reactive and seeking community input on major decisions.

“You have to set up some avenues for regular and meaningful dialogue, and there are different ways to do that,” Misner said. “There’s a kitchen cabinet. It’s good for the board and the superintendent to get out there and be highly visible, but there’s also a ‘kitchen cabinet’ of certain key stakeholders — maybe parents, maybe business people — that you run things by occasionally to get the pulse of the community. You can do a focus group of eight people and get a pretty good read on what’s going on generally, trends and whether something will be good for Dowagiac. A coffee on Saturday morning. You can occasionally have forums. Don’t wait until there is a crisis as things evolve. If you want to look at a new high school someday, that’s a two-year process. There’s a threshold in every community of what they can and will support and the need has to be clearly communicated. So many districts go for something that’s not reasonable — and what’s reasonable changes.”

The board “owns” the organization on behalf of the community and its members are accountable to the community.

It employs the CEO, Dr. Daniel, to whom it delegates day-to-day operation.

The superintendent is the only district employee who reports to and receives direction from the school board.

“The board speaks with one voice or not at all,” Misner said.

“That means community people are going to want to talk to you, and you can listen, but you can’t tell them what the board’s going to do. That’s communication protocol. You wouldn’t be an elected official if people didn’t want to chat with you. That’s one reason you’re on the board, is to bring back ideas.”