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Your Board of Trustees
What
is the Board of Trustees?
What is the Board of
Trustees for?
What is the Board of Trustees? The Board is a group of interested citizens (not necessarily parents/caregivers) who have been elected or appointed to act on behalf of the community to ensure the successful education of all children enrolled at the school. In Lyall Bay’s case our Board is made up of 7 elected parent representatives, 1 elected staff representative and Dennis Thompson the Principal. What is the Board of Trustees for? Every state school, or state integrated school in NZ has a Board of Trustees, who act on behalf of the school’s community to ensure that the school continuously improves student progress and achievement outcomes. The board is a separate Crown entity charged with controlling “the management of the school” and as such is accountable to its parents, the community and to the government. The board provides strategic leadership and direction to the school. Lyall Bay has a well developed policy framework which gives direction to guide all school activities. The board needs to ensure the school’s policies are maintained and relevant at all times. The board is also responsible for providing a Charter for the school – which outlines how we will ensure the school is managed, organised and administered properly. An important point to understand is that the Board is not responsible for the day-to-day running of the school. Our Principal (Dennis Thompson) has overall responsibility for day-to-day management of the school, within the policies and delegations established and approved by the Board. The Ministry of Education defines the difference in roles as: Primarily, the board governs, providing overall direction and control of the school, while the principal – as the school’s ‘chief executive’ – manages school operations. Well, we meet generally every 6 weeks. An agenda is issued in advance, along with supporting information/material. Matters will be discussed and where-ever possible actions agreed at the meeting. Minutes of each meeting are documented and available on request. We hope to make these available via the website also in the near future. There are a wide range of topics for the Board to consider and therefore, in order to make the best use of the time and skills of each Board Member, we have decided to allocate portfolios of responsibility between the Board Members. However, all Board members still have an equal say and right to participate in any Board discussions/activities. Who are the Board of Trustees? The current members of the Board of Trustees are as follows: Atawhai Tibble – Co-Chairman Kevin O’Neill – Co-Chairman of the Board and Finance Portfolio Chris Taylor – Charter/Policy/Self-Review Portfolio
Gail Kelly – HR & Health & Safety Portfolio Paul Kotrotsos – Property Portfolio Liz Stewart – Communications Portfolio Kieran McDonald – Staff Representative Dennis Thompson – Principal If you would like to see a mugshot and/or know more about any of the members of the Board – you can find more information on the school website; www.lyallbayschool.co.nz
The Board of Trustee meetings are “open” meetings – that means that any of you are welcome to come along and join us to observe the meetings any time you want to. We will post a schedule of upcoming meetings on the website, or you can check with Kathy at the school office for the next scheduled meeting. Meetings are generally held every 6 weeks on a Monday evening at 6.45pm in the school staffroom. We have also created an email address just for the Board of Trustees. So if you would like to drop us an email, please feel free to send it to:
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