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Governance issues of Nebraska Class I school boards
Abstract
Osborne and Gaebler (1992) called for a reinvention of public agencies and organizations around the concept of community ownership. The authors argued that local governments need to promote community ownership rather than centralized bureaucracy. Among the many public agencies that may or may not practice the concept of community ownership are small town school boards. This study was designed to explore school governance in small rural schools and examined how elected officials arrive at decisions. Three models of governance guided the data gathering; the delegate model, trustee model and civic participation model. The researcher looked for evidence of how the community and board functioned in relationship to each other in order to recognize the type of governance engaged in by the school board. A key interest was whether principles of community ownership characterize the governance relationships in small town school districts. Community and board members of small schools in a village setting were interviewed about the relationship of school boards to citizens. The following themes were identified in the seven districts selected: (1) Election and recruitment strategies of a board member; (2) Gathering information formally and informally; (3) Board responsiveness to concerns of the community; (4) Articulating school problems to the constituents; (5) Board member's role as delegate, trustee or civic participant. During times of routine and no conflict the relationship between the board member and citizen was less interactive and was characterized by the trustee model. But, the greater the anxiety level of the people the greater the effort by the board members to hear the constituents. Under conditions of conflict, the delegate model characterized the relationship. There was little evidence of the participation model. The researcher concluded by recommending that Osborne and Gaebler's concept of community ownership may be useful to those communities that seek to maintain their schools as viable educational institutions in the face of increasing demands for services and consolidation.
Subject Area
School administration|Elementary education|Public administration|Educational sociology
Recommended Citation
Preheim, Lois Thieszen, "Governance issues of Nebraska Class I school boards" (1995). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9600750.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9600750