The role of the Board of Trustees

Image from Pixabay by geralt. Public domain. 

Every state and state integrated New Zealand school has a Board of Trustees, a group of representatives from the school community.  So what do they actually do?

Our role is to make decisions, on behalf of the school community, about the ways that we want to support student progress and achievement at Sylvia Park School.  Our bottom line is to make sure that our kids are learning and developing while they are here.

So that we make good decisions, we need to take advice and guidance from many groups of people including the Ministry of Education, professional experts, the SPS staff, our students and the families of our school community. 

The Board of Trustees do not manage the school, all of the day to day matters are taken care of by our wonderful Principal, Whaea Barb.  She is also on the Board of Trustees and provides reports at every meeting about the issues we need to know about, especially related to student learning. 

Other members of our Board are the staff trustee and we have six parent trustees.  We all meet about once a month, with smaller groups taking on extra responsibilities in specific areas such as the building projects and policy development.

To find out more about the role of Boards of Trustees, visit the New Zealand School Trustees Association website.

Esther