Congratulations on your election to the Board of the Lincoln Nursery School (LNS). Thank you for so generously agreeing to give time, energy, and ideas in support of your child’s school. You are part of a long, dedicated and colorful history. Lincoln Nursery School is one of the oldest cooperative nursery schools in the area. It is because of efforts like yours that the school has flourished and grown for over fifty years.
The documents in your manual provide essential information regarding your responsibilities as a Board member. If you have served on the Board in the past, it is still important to review what it means to be a member of the LNS Board and how your role affects the day-to-day life at our school.
As a cooperative school, it is particularly important that everyone’s voice is heard, respected, and responded to. As a Board member, it is your responsibility to know how and where to constructively direct anyone who presents you with an idea or concern.
Enjoy your year and be assured that your efforts are appreciated and your input will make a difference.
You have been elected to an important position at LNS. The bi-monthly Board meetings are the business meetings of the school and it is important that you attend each one. The diversity inherent in having as many Board members as possible at each meeting ensures a sound, broadly based policy. You are aware of many factors which can affect a decision, and you represent parents who are not at the meeting. A full Board ensures more thorough and lively discussions of the issues at hand.
When you first considered LNS for your child, you looked at it as a place where your child would be well cared for in your absence. As a Board member you must now look beyond that perspective and consider the larger questions that any business faces: What is the school’s mission and how do I achieve it? What is the school’s “product” and how do I maintain its quality? How am I to be a good and fair employer? How do I keep this business going? The issues you will be asked to consider, and the problems you will be asked to solve, must now be seen within this larger context because that is the level on which the Board must operate. It is responsible for the whole school. It must make the whole thing work – not just one classroom, not just one idea, and not just this year.
You are an employer. It is the Board that the Director reports to, and it is the Board that issues teacher and Director contracts and job offers. It is your responsibility to ensure a fair, respectful and legally sound working environment for your employees.
You have a budget and several bank accounts which provide you with the financial resources to run the school. It is your responsibility to make prudent and wise financial decisions.
You represent all LNS parents at the bi-monthly Board meetings. It is your responsibility to disseminate information back to the parent body.
This may sound like a large responsibility – it is, and it can be time consuming. But serving on the LNS Board is a fulfilling and challenging experience. It was parents just like you who founded this school and we depend on parents just like you to keep in going. You are truly in a position where you can make a difference. During your tenure on this Board, you will learn from each Board member, and they from you. You will share with them a legal, ethical and spiritual responsibility for the operation and continuance of LNS. Thank you for giving so generously of your talents and time.
There are 6 Board meetings each school year. They are every other month from June to May, on the same evening each month as designated by each Board at the June meeting.
There are two special board meetings each year:
- May—This is a combined monthly Board meeting and the Annual Meeting of the Members (i.e. all parents – see below)
- June—This is a combined meeting with the old Board and the new Board just elected at the Annual Meeting in May. We call it the “transitional meeting”. The first half is conducted by the outgoing President; the second half by the new President. At the end of the meeting, Board notebooks, files, etc. are passed over to the new Board members.
The published agenda for each Board meeting is an important means of communicating to the entire LNS community that which will be discussed. It is distributed in everyone’s mailbox (or via email) the week before the meeting. In this way, those who are interested in or affected by a given topic have an opportunity to have input toward the decision.
There will undoubtedly be a few last minute items that do not get onto the published agenda. We will attempt to keep these to a minimum. Please report any additional agenda items to the President before the Board meeting so she can inform the appropriate people.
- 1 When a vote needs to be taken:
- Policy decisions
- Anything that involves money: Starting in 1991/92, with the provision of a contingency fund in the budget, if any budget category goes over its budget, any additional funds to that category to cover its overrun must be specifically approved by the Board. These additional funds will come from the contingency fund, and every debit from that fund must be made by Board vote.
- When it would be helpful to get a tangible sense of support for a project, or to pin down prevailing opinion on an issue; or to adopt a new procedure, etc. Any time general discussion does not seem to clarify the majority position well enough.
- Focusing discussion around a motion: Board discussion can be frustrating and heated when it doesn’t have a focus. A useful way to keep things rolling and to make decisions is to center discussion on a specific proposal or a motion. There can be discussion before a motion, and there should always be discussion after the motion has been stated and seconded. Prior to voting on any motion, it is important to have a discussion that represents a range of viewpoints, both supportive of and dissenting with the motion. It is the President’s job to make sure that all sides of an issue are voiced before a vote is taken. Unless all sides are heard, it is difficult to cast an informed vote.
- What is Committee work and what is Board work: Committee work should be done before the Board meeting. The Board meeting is a place to report on the decisions and recommendations of the committee. Board meetings can get tedious and frustrating when the Board is asked to make little detailed decisions that really are a committee’s responsibility. For one thing, asking for detailed Board involvement can undermine the committee. For another, having a whole roomful of people commenting and making decisions on matters that are more thoroughly understood by the committee is not productive. There is a grey zone, however, when a committee wants to sound out a group of parents about various ideas. An example is Fundraising getting approval for its event ideas. Technically, the Fundraising committee can do whatever it wants to do, but it is comforting to float a few trial balloons with the Board before launching into a lot of work. If they come to the Board with a few proposals for the Board to react to, that usually works well. If they come to the Board for ideas and approval of specific details, the Board can get bogged down.
- What is an Executive Session: This is when the open Board meeting (where any parent or staff member or guest can attend) adjourns and all non-voting, non-Board attendees leave. The Director or other specific individuals may be invited to stay if so requested by the Board. Traditionally, executive sessions have only been called to vote on the budget; but they can be called for whatever purpose the President or other Board members designate. An executive session permits very frank and free discussion. An important rule about executive sessions is that what is said is completely CONFIDENTIAL. Minutes are taken but only distributed to the President’s files and the minute book. Individuals are never identified in these notes.
- Quorums and Actions by Vote: For monthly Board meetings, the quorum is a majority of Board members then in office. When a quorum is present, a majority of the votes of Board members will decide any question before the Board.
- Committees: There are two kinds of committees that the President and/or the Board can appoint.
- Ad hoc Committees: These can bring together Board members, non-Board parents, as well as Alumni Trustees. These committees have specific tasks (e.g. the personnel, finance, administrations committees in the 1990-1 Long Term Planning effort) and they submit their findings and recommendations to the Board for discussion and adoption.
- Executive Committees: Only Board members serve on these committees which also are created for special purposes. If expressly empowered by the Board, these committees can do everything the Board can do: vote, make policy decisions, etc. These are useful committees for handling complex and technical problems and their resolution. An example is from 1990-1, when an executive committee made changes to the year’s budget in order to minimize the impact of budget overruns. The task was too cumbersome for the entire Board, and the executive committee had the power to make the necessary changes. The steering committee is an ongoing executive committee which meets semi-monthly to expedite business and address issues that do not require board review.
This meeting is scheduled to coincide with the monthly May Board meeting. All parents of currently enrolled children at LNS are invited and encouraged to attend. What happens is:
- Last year’s Minutes are approved
- The President and Director give reports of the year
- The financial report to date is given
- The slate for next year’s Board is voted on
- Bylaw amendments, if any, are ratified.
The quorum is 20 or more parents (whether present or represented by proxy). Each parent has one vote. When a quorum is present at an annual meeting, a majority of votes will decide any question.
The Annual Meeting must be announced two weeks prior to the meeting. With this notice, an agenda, a proxy, and the slate for Board election will be distributed.
2024 MINUTES:
2023 MINUTES:
11/14/23 Board Meeting Minutes
2022 MINUTES:
5/22 annual board meeting minutes
2021 MINUTES:
5/21 annual board meeting minutes
2020 MINUTES:
2019 MINUTES:
2018 MINUTES:
2017 MINUTES:
2016 MINUTES: