Joining the DMCS Governing Board

The DMCS Governing Board is tasked with the following responsibilities:

1. Ensure good student learning
2. Establish and maintain the vision and strategic plan for the school
3. Evaluate the Director, and thereby the school
4. Ensure adequate resources are available, and that the school exercises fiscal responsibility and accountability.
5. Enhance the school’s public standing within both the educational and civic communities.
6. Recruit and orient new board members, and assess its own performance.

Additionally, Governing Boards are often expected to help fundraise for the school by seeking connections with local businesses and philanthropies.
There are several activities that arise from these responsibilities. As a Board member, you will be expected to engage in all of these.

1. Ensure good student learning
   1. Become familiar with the educational programs
   2. Seek out good ideas of ways to challenge the school to improve school learning
2. Vision and strategic plan:
   1. Participate in Board Workshops
   2. Familiarize yourself with the history of DMCS
   3. Familiarize yourself with the process of defining a strategic plan.
3. Evaluate the Director
   1. Become conversant in key areas of school performance - educational programs, staff satisfaction, student proficiency, special education.
   2. Participate in continuing education activities such as Board book recommendations and YMC educational seminars in order to better understand areas of risk and exposure.
   3. Become familiar with how the school operates, including meeting staff and visiting classrooms of all grade levels.
4. Fiscal responsibility and accountability
   1. Become conversant in reading and understanding the budget and warrant reports.

Qualifications: The consequence of the Board failing to successfully complete the above activities is the failure of the school. Therefore, it is advantageous to have Board members with backgrounds in accounting, education administration, governance, insurance, and public policy. For a charter school in a small city, it can be challenging to find people with these specific backgrounds who have the time and interest to participate.  Therefore Board members will be expected to become educated in those areas that are not already represented.

Qualities of a good Board member:

1. Willing to learn, often on his/her own time, about key topic areas such as law, finance, and governance.
2. Ability to remain neutral and explore all sides of an issue before making a decision.
3. Understand that being an individual Board member conveys no authority over school staff or special treatment.
4. Understand that the Board’s role is to govern, not to manage.
5. Ability to work as part of a group.

Public district boards are often considered “stepping stone” positions to other political positions. In contrast, a charter school board is a working board, and will take on many of the governance tasks that a district office might otherwise perform.  As a Board member, you will generally not be making policy for the school (and the Board is not interested in candidates who have an “agenda” to push).  Instead you will be helping to set the overall vision and direction..

Applying to Become a Trustee

1. Attend at least one Board meeting so you are familiar with the topics discussed.
2. Complete the “Statement of Interest” document and submit it to board@dixonmontessori.org.
3. The Board will ask you to attend a subsequent meeting in order to meet you and ask any followup questions about your application.

For applications to fill a current vacant seat, a three-week open application period will be honored after the first application is received. A selection will generally be made at the next regular meeting. 
For applications to fill an upcoming seat, the Board will review applications in September and October, and select new candidates in November.
Candidate selection is done in closed session.