Coffee and reviewing bylaws

If there's one thing I've learned over the past few years working with our school councils, it's how important it is to have bylaws that outline how the council operates. Bylaws don't need to be lengthy or complicated, but they should be specific. They set the ground rules for councils so council members can get on with the more important, and frankly, more fun work of supporting student success at the school.

I know many of our councils don't have bylaws. I've also heard that the template bylaws we've provided may not be specific enough. I get a lot of questions like, "how do we deal with electronic voting?" and "can someone who isn't at the meeting vote?" or "if someone doesn't come to meetings, can we replace their position?".

The voting thing is a whole other issue, because as you know, consensus is the preferred decision-making method. But sometimes it is necessary to vote, and when that happens, wouldn't it be great to have a predetermined method outlined in a bylaw?

I'm having coffee with a community member tomorrow who has exprience developing bylaws for various organizations. He and I are reviewing the template bylaws we have for the purpose of creating more effective templates for our school councils. I'm so thankful for his offer to help because bylaws certainly aren't my area of expertise, and I'm always interested in gathering knowledge from generous individuals around me.

I'm making it one of my many missions this spring to improve on the support we provide to councils because I strongly believe in the benefit of school councils. I've seen councils that operate well, in true partnership with the school staff and community. In the end, the beneficaries are the kids. And isn't that why we all do what we do? Whether you work for the board or volunteer, we are doing it for the students and to make our communities fabulous places to live, learn and grow. I think sometimes we can forget that, the bottomline, when we get wrapped up in process. So let's simplfy the process with excellent, clear bylaws and focus our energy on what matters: student success.