When the business office of a school is led by a Consultative Business Officer, excellence will be achieved. Nancy Greene is another great example. She is the Chief Finance and Operations Officer at the Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida. Through her leadership on their sprawling campus and in many different professional organizations (NBOA, FCIS, etc.) across the country, Nancy has distinguished herself as a talented role model. 

In the final episode of the "Enrollment Blitz" webinar series, we focused on strategies for onboarding new families in order to increase their enthusiasm and likelihood to reenroll.

The HR PRO

The second risky role a board member can play in our Boards Gone Wild webinar series is The HR Pro. Talent recruiting and development is a critical process for school success, but these human resource activities are outside of the domain of the board. A board member may be tempted to inject him or herself into this process, creating a tension between governance and management.

It's probably never happened to your board, but sometimes school board members can lose their minds and get a little crazy.

Boards Gone Wild is the School Growth Tuesday Webinar series for June 2015 and centers around board leadership impact. How can you overcome the distractions and chaos when school board members go off the reservation in violation of good governance practice, creating heartache, hardship, and chaos?

In our "Enrollment Blitz" webinar series focused on Maximizing Marketing. How can you take full advantage of your marketing dollars to produce the best results? To expand your marketing expertise, be sure you know the difference between paid media and earned media, and that you have a good understanding of inbound marketing strategies.

Enrolling students must be someone's job and everyone's job. Certainly the admission office is responsible for inviting students, but the other board, other administrators, faculty, and families also have an important role to play. An effective way to share the load to grow enrollment is through family mobilization. As we discussed on the School Growth Webinar this week, below are some ways to gain broader involvement.

Our new Tuesday Webinar series, The Risks of School Leadership, started this week with a look at the various people that may threaten the safety and stability of the school. The risk of school leadership starts with people--including teachers, coaches, board members, parents, bus drivers, neighbors, and even a stranger who is an aggressive threat such as a shooter who has invaded the campus.

How do the board and administrators know that the business officer cares? Because of the genuine effort to listen, connect and support.

The Consultative Business Officer knows that understanding starts with listening. This is a skill at which he/she is distinctly expert, being careful to know the successes, challenges and fears, goals and plans, along with the needs and opportunities.

The Consultative Business Officer knows how to Tune In to the "channel" of his/her internal clients to optimize the performance of each. By reading and learning common language, current events, risks and opportunities, and trends and results, the CBO is prepared to build relationships and create solutions that truly further the mission.

Have you heard the one about the Superintendent who became a pirate? It's a scary tale, but the lessons learned must be shared for the benefit of others like yourself.