5 May 2009

Paying parents to sit on school boards

| johnboy
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The Canberra Times brings word that Andrew Barr is considering paying parents encourage them to get involved with school boards.

    He said he was ”not suggesting directors’ fees a la company board of management, but it might be worth considering tying in some money to make a broader range of parents participate and to recognise that there is often a cost to giving up time for volunteering such as having to get alternative child care.”Schools would need to fund honorariums from within their own budgets as allocated under school- based management.

Anyone care to elaborate as to what it is school boards actually do?

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canberra bureaucrat10:08 pm 06 May 09

ok mono, I have checked the facts and I grant you that I was a bit unfair, it is certainly not just a consultative committee (http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/1976-59/20010912-1677/pdf/1976-59.pdf). But if you read sections 38 and and 39 of the Act you will see the word “recommend” appear many times (recommend = influence, but not formal power). I note in particular 39(4) which says that the authority does not have to do what the Board recommends. So to be clearer, they do not have the powers of a Board in the Corporations law (Cth) or Incorporation law (ACT) sense of the word.

Also I said “…they don’t sound like…”, by which I should have been clearer and stated “based only on the information in this post”.

canberra bureaucrat said :

I am not familiar with the public school system boards (yet), but they don’t sound like a board in reality. Boards make decisions on governance and policy. They DIRECT and organisation. What you are referring to is a consultative committee (by whatever name it might be given). A consultative committee has no power to decide anything, except perhaps when to meet, and what to ‘recommend’ to the school.

You are right. You don’t know what you are talking about. You are wrong. The board has the power to make significant binding decisions concerning the operation of the school.

Very true Granny, very true. It is busy busy times for all families and I suspect the guilt factor is increasing as families struggle to meet the demands for their time. I know that I would like to do more (and I do heaps!), but simply can’t. We also find that it is the same people that do the volunteering for everything.

There’s also a great Australian tradition of kids playing out on the front lawn under a sprinkler, but times can change even if people don’t want them to. There are a huge number of expectations and pressures on families.

I’m not saying people couldn’t or shouldn’t volunteer, but it’s not a lot different from the discussion about school canteens being run by the P&C. With most families today double income, many parents simply can’t volunteer for school canteen duty during the day or school board duty at night.

A lot of the domestic and organisational family tasks that were once able to be performed during the day must now wait till evening or weekends.

Add to that the community expectations that children will have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of extra-curricular activities and the fear of letting children go out by themselves, and you have a recipe for a very busy family.

So much for the much-touted great Australian tradition of voluntarism …

canberra bureaucrat8:32 pm 05 May 09

I am not familiar with the public school system boards (yet), but they don’t sound like a board in reality. Boards make decisions on governance and policy. They DIRECT and organisation. What you are referring to is a consultative committee (by whatever name it might be given). A consultative committee has no power to decide anything, except perhaps when to meet, and what to ‘recommend’ to the school. They get told what to do (i.e. “implement policy as directed by the Department and consult with the P&C on actions that will benefit the school etc”). People on real boards are legally accountable for the organisations they direct. In the case of public schools, government employees/Ministers have that accountability.

Not that I have a problem with that of course. They are very worthwhile things to be involved in.

I agree with many comments above. VYBerlina is spot on about the real issue: “The real question that needs to be asked is why parents don’t want to sit on boards now.”

This is an issue with voluntary organisations generally. I think it’s mostly to do with time (parents are very time poor).

Our school must be a bit unusual … we had lots of people competing for school board positions this year and we actually had to vote!

I have nothing against paying people for the work they do. School boards are part of the administration structure of the public education system. Some people are elected to represent the view of the community on the management of the school. They don’t necessarily have to be parents. I would not be against the payment of teacher or student reps either. So what if the pay is an incentive as long as a honest effort is made to do the job well. Motivations that exist for community members and teachers are not always selfless. Looks good on the CV. A component of community involvement.

I think you are thinking fine Granny! 🙂

Oh sorry! God, I’m not thinking. Sorry.

I think as people become more time poor it is harder to get them involved, as not-for-profit groups are also crying out for voluntary board members. I agree with many of the concerns expressed here to some degree, although would have no problem seeing our two wonderful board reps remunerated. They would do it regardless, and it’s probably just a token in any case. I actually feel that if your child’s future doesn’t motivate you then a financial incentive won’t either unless it was sufficiently large to result in the sorts of problems Mike outlined.

grunge_hippy5:39 pm 05 May 09

good. then they can start paying teachers overtime for all the stuff they do after school hours, including sitting on the board. Having sat on various school boards as a teacher, they are the most boring thing you can possibly do with your time after a full day of work. They are token anyway really… as someone said before, the dept doesnt listen, it does its own thing.

Pommy bastard2:38 pm 05 May 09

If you pay people, you will attract the sort of person who would only do the work for payment. Exactly the wrong sort if person to do it.

I agree with thumper. If anyone should get paid, it is the emergency services volunteers.

You missed my point Peter. In my opinion volunteer emergency services workers should not get paid.

And neither should school parent bodies.

we will have to disagree thumper, i consider the work that the emergency services volunteers to be on par with the work that the ADF reserves do.

if the act dept of education actually cared what we thought, the consultation about the school closures would have had merit. But they did their own thing.

The P&C should be there to represent the children. not the dept of ed or for any monetary reimbursement.

do you get paid to take your kids to a soccer match on a saturday morning at 6.30am?

P&C is a voluntary organisation. you have the chance to make your voice heard, but money should be kept out of it…

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

The real question that needs to be asked is why parents don’t want to sit on boards now.

Because the whole idea of being a volunteer is anathema in a public service town. Mr Barr is on the right track, but he hasn’t gone far enough. School boards need to be restructured and members given a position title and classification based on those used in the Commonwealth Public Service. Then people will flock to join, so they can commence complaining that the work they’re being asked to do should be classified at a higher level than what theirs is currently set at, and spend at least 30% of every meeting negotiating entitlements.

johnboy said :

doesn’t sounds like a worthwhile way to spend an evening if you ask me.

Unfortunately not all boards are that respectful of peoples times. I was on one where meetings were during work hours a time that suited the pricipal, despite many of us having to take time out of our paid work.

Boards are different from the P&C – the P&C deals with the more practical issues – the board deals with the strategic issues like finance, departmental policy implementation etc. The board is usually the less sexy option.

I disagree with Peterh – what difference will paying parents a sitting fee make to the level of influence they already have by sitting on boards, they won’t be employees. There are heaps of committees around where members are paid sitting fees – some published by the Remuneration Tribunal, others getting a fee for ‘out of pocket expenses’. It is very legitimate to pay voluntary members of committees reasonable out of pocket expenses.

I don’t believe paying a sitting fee/out of pocket will make one whit of difference to the people who choose to sit on boards – everyone has a motivation and some are more altruistic than others. However, covering out of pocket expenses either through a small fee or reimbursement and formalising that seems reasonable.

I agree with thumper. If anyone should get paid, it is the emergency services volunteers.

Mike Crowther12:45 pm 05 May 09

Typical Barr ‘generosity’. Once you pay for something you can exercise a measure of control over it.

the other thing about paying parents to sit on the board is that the parents will have an influence for new children coming to the school. what about schools who have an influx from out of feeder areas – after those schools in the particular suburbs were closed?

If you are paying a parent to sit on the board, you are effectively employing them as a member of the ACT government. Their input has weight over a non paid parent, it would create little fiefdoms within the act schools system. We already have staff paid by the department to make decisions re student enrollments, we don’t need newly paid parents with a hidden agenda.

This looks particularly odd in the face of last week’s announcement of a review into school based management, with a clear emphasis being to lift some of the burden on principals (and therefor on school boards), and moving those tasks back to the department.

A case of Andrew ‘Headline’ Barr looking for another media opportunity, me thinks.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy12:26 pm 05 May 09

The real question that needs to be asked is why parents don’t want to sit on boards now. Start figuring that out and things will become clearer.

Handing out money, FFS…

barking toad12:18 pm 05 May 09

The whole issue reeks of a typical labor/leftie sense of entitlement for what
should be a voluntary involvement of parents in assisting the running of the
institution that educates their kids.

The snout/trough mentality is embedded in labor politics.

Ask our local Cairns senator when it arrives back from another holiday.

rottweiler said :

I am very involed with the P&C at my daughters school and I do it purely because I want to be involed in how the school runs and what happening with my kids, Many parents don’t give a toss what’s going on but like to bitch about it paying these “parents” would be a joke and cause more problems than it’s worth. I recieve small benifits from my volunteer work a free snag here and there or I pay a discounted rate for some events I’m helping out at, and for me that all I want.

Oh yea.. I forgot free snags, bacon and egg sangers at fete’s etc.. all the payment any parent needs. Good pick up, rottweiler!

I am very involed with the P&C at my daughters school and I do it purely because I want to be involed in how the school runs and what happening with my kids, Many parents don’t give a toss what’s going on but like to bitch about it paying these “parents” would be a joke and cause more problems than it’s worth. I recieve small benifits from my volunteer work a free snag here and there or I pay a discounted rate for some events I’m helping out at, and for me that all I want.

Or paying volunteers fire fighters?

Seriously, there is enough infighting on school boards as it is, if they were paid you’d have serious problems, if not corruption and nepotism.

This is a really, really stupid idea.

Agreed. My kids school has parents queuing up to be on the Board as it is both inclusive and fun. I sat on the board of my kids pre-school when they were younger and we ran it the same way. Sure it was an hour or so out of your time each month but we made sure we raised money that benefited out kids as well as those that came the following year. We also took along a few drinks and snacks so it was a self-funded social event as well.

Conversely, another pre-school Board in the same area had massive fights when it was decided that some of the money raised though the year would be used to fund board members travel (a few $ petrol money) and a special Board dinner at the end of the year. Apparently, it all became very very nasty.

In any event I always thought the term ‘volunteer’ meant just that – you do it because you want to without gaining either financial or material reward.

barking toad11:31 am 05 May 09

Parents getting involved as a check/balance to the department policies is
only going to work if it’s self motivated on a volunteer basis. I’m sure most departmental policies will be fine but a parental view should be encouraged.

Paid toadies will spout the departmental view.

It depends on whether parents want to have a say in their kids education or just use a school for child minding.

neanderthalsis11:29 am 05 May 09

I wouldn’t think it was the job of the school board to implement the policies of the department; that would be the role of the departmental staff, the principal and the teachers. The Board would advise on the implementation and the effectiveness of the policy, and where necessary inform the School and the Department that their policies are a crock…

What about asking parents to volunteer as teachers when Ms Johnson calls in sick after staying up too late dancing for the boys at Mooseheads?

Working to implement the policies of the department doesn’t sounds like a worthwhile way to spend an evening if you ask me.

School Boards work with the Principal to manage the affairs of the school, including finance and high level admin. They work to implement policy as directed by the Department and consult with the P&C on actions that will benefit the school and the environment which kids operate in.

barking toad11:04 am 05 May 09

What crap. If parents aren’t motivated to get involved then they get what they deserve.

If you want to pay “volunteers” you’ll get a new mob of politicians that follow the money.

Andrew should wear a face mask to stop mayor infection. Or is it too late?

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