NESA Governance Initiative

More than ever before, boards of international independent schools can make a vital difference in the advancement and success of their institutions. The current landscape — political, financial, legal, and technological — is rife with change. As their schools’ ultimate governing bodies, boards are in a unique position to help their institutions tackle challenges and seize opportunities and, in doing so, truly serve today’s and tomorrow’s students.

From the Foreward by Donna Orem in the International Trustee Handbook, Second Edition, by David Chojnacki and Richard M. Detwiler, National Association of Independent Schools, 2019

With a grant from the Office of Overseas Schools, the NESA Governance Initiative was created by David Chojnacki, immediate past Executive Director of NESA and Senior Consultant with Carney Sandoe & Associates, and Rick Detwiler, International Schools Governance Consultant, to support school leadership with useful materials, including a Board Development Curriculum, a clear framework of modules and outcomes, essential questions, and a School Board Evaluation Instrument.

These resources provide school boards and heads of school with tools to better understand, evaluate and improve their roles and relationships, ultimately for the benefit of the students in our schools.

Please download the Board Development Curriculum and School Board Evaluation Instrument below, and use them for self-evaluation in your schools.

The School Board Evaluation Instrument is a PDF form. Responses cannot be saved if it is opened within your internet browser: it must first be downloaded and opened in a PDF Reader application, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or Preview. Using Adobe Acrobat, you may also choose to distribute the form to your board, in order to automatically download and organize responses with Acrobat.com.