NWCS Board Duties and Responsibilities

(1/16/2006)

Overview (Mission statement)

The Northern Westchester Chinese School (NWCS) is a non-sectarian, non-political and non-profit organization. The Board is the sole governing body of NWCS and the directors of the Board are elected by the parent members. The Board will discharge its duties in accordance to the NWCS By-law. The Board directors, in good faith, will utilize diligence and care, to ensure the programs and services are run with legal and ethical integrity and in the best interest of its members. The Board directors shall encourage greater interactions within and outside NWCS to achieve better communication among members and higher visibility in the community. The Board shall have dual roles to lead and serve the NWCS: one is to establish the governing rules and the other is to monitor the execution of those rules. This Operating Manual is intended as guidance to the Board and its directors, and hence includes the duties and responsibilities of the Board directors, the structure of committees, procedures of Board meeting, and guidelines for the School rules

1. Duties and Responsibilities of Board Directors:
   1. Review school financial status at least once per semester and two weeks before the General Meeting
   2. Make decisions in major purchases and expenses
   3. Authorize School reserve and other specific funds and their usage
   4. Review and approve expense reimbursement rules and limits for the School personnel (details of dollar amounts are in the School Operating Manual)
   5. Establish school policies, rules, class structure, and curriculum
   6. Prepare and propose amendment of School By-law to the General Meeting for voting
   7. Solicit and recommend to the General Meetings candidates for new Board directors and School officers
   8. Determine the level of compensation for the school personnel
   9. Recommend and organize committees to study and work on diverse issues to strengthen and enhance the goals of the organization. Guidelines for the Committees are incorporated in Section 3. Each and every committee will be responsible for their respective studies and recommendations to the Board.
   10. Confirm and approve NWCS scholarship awards to outstanding students
   11. Review and decide on teacher and staff dismissals based on the Principal’s recommendations
   12. Investigate and rule on unexpected events and issues
   13. Participate in the overall personnel and operational activities of the school and have the rights to enquire all school activities
   14. Ensure the School policy and rules are observed and implemented uniformly and consistently over years
   15. Archive all relevant financial and academic documents
2. Chair of the Board
   1. Elected by the Board members, one-year term. Can be re-elected for one more term.
   2. Oversees and coordinates the activities of the committees
   3. Calls and conducts Board meetings (at least once a month during school year and more when needed; Board members should be notified of any meeting at least three days in advance.)
   4. Works with the Principal to prepare the General Meetings (once a semester; meeting notice should be sent out to parent members two weeks in advance.)
   5. Works with the Principal to maintain good relations and communications with host school and other organizations
   6. Responsible for initiating and coordinating special Board meetings for official responses to, any significant events or issues that require the decision of the Board
   7. Conducts Teacher/Staff appreciation events
      Provides a smooth transition between outgoing and incoming Principal
3. Committees and their Tasks
   A committee is a special group delegated or assigned to consider, investigate, and work on matters or events that have potential impact to the School. A committee is a place to form consensus on a particular issue, generate new ideas, and/or a working group to carry out a specified task. Since different issues can be studied by different committees in parallel, more issues can be studied more thoroughly and dealt with quickly. Committees are open to all parent members but have to be supervised and coordinated by a director of the Board. All committees have to be approved by the Board. The Board will appoint an appropriate director responsible for the committee. Each Board director is responsible for no more than one Committee. Conversely, the committee, through the director, must regularly report to the Board all relevant developments within the committee. These committees should not interfere with the day to day operation of the school. They are intended to provide help to the Board in governing the school. Committees are formed generally at the beginning of each school year or whenever there is a need. Committees make recommendations to the Board on an issue and the Board will vote and decide on the issue. The following is a sample list of committees and their tasks:
   1. Long-term planning –Committee responsible for the long-term planning of the NWCS with the following related issues -
      1. Global and local environments School academic programs
      2. School location and facilities
      3. Parent and student populations
   2. Curriculum — Committee on the school curriculum. Sample tasks are -
      1. Review of textbook materials
      2. Review of supplementary teaching materials
      3. Revision of class work guidelines
      4. Revision of homework guidelines
   3. Teacher affairs –Committee for the teacher affairs. Sample tasks are:
      1. Recommendation of teacher’s compensation
      2. Revision of teacher’s handbook
      3. Helping Principal in recruiting teachers
      4. Planning teacher’s training activities
      5. Study of all other teacher related issues
      6. Teacher’s opinion survey .
   4. Parent and student affairs –Committee for the parent and student affairs. Sample tasks are:
      1. Student recruitment
      2. Parent activities and education
      3. Parent’s opinion survey
      4. Alumni communications
      5. NWCS Scholarship
   5. Finance –Committee for matters of School finance. Sample tasks are:
      1. Long-term financial planning
      2. Audit of current financial status
      3. Fund raising
   6. School operations — Committee on issues related to the operations of the School. Sample tasks are:
      1. eSchool development – software/service selection and in-house software development and deployment
      2. Review of school operations
      3. Review of School’s rules
   7. Public relations – Committee on internal and external School public relations. Sample tasks are:
      1. Work with Chair on issues related to the public relationship
      2. Work with Finance committee on fund raising
      3. Maintaining and improving the community presence of NWCS
4. Board Meetings
   1. Chair calls and conducts the meetings. Notification of meetings with date and agenda must be sent at least three days in advance. However, a meeting can be called when there is an urgent issue to be dealt with.
   2. A meeting can be called by a group of three Board directors with a clear agenda revealed in advance
   3. The attendance of a legitimate Board meeting must not be less than two-third of the Board directors
   4. Board meeting is open to all parent members. A closed session is allowed after the Board has voted for that particular session.
   5. The caller of a meeting should discuss the priority and time allocation of each agenda at the beginning of a meeting
   6. Motions must have a second before putting into an agenda
   7. Keep meeting minutes
   8. Review last meeting minutes – correct recording errors
   9. Keep records of voting results and what the vote is for
   10. At the end of a school year, new rules that have been voted and passed in that year should be reviewed and placed in the School Operating Manual
   11. Issues should be studied, if possible, by their corresponding committees prior to a formal discussion in the Board meeting. The committee studies the issues and makes recommendations. The Board makes decisions by voting. This will save time and have the issues understood well.
5. School Rules
   1. Rules can be changed by the Board with majority votes and at least two-third of Board members voted
   2. Rules can be final or on a trial basis with a trial period specified
   3. Rules must be published in the School Rule Change Announcement (in the School Newsletter) after they are voted and passed by the Board
   4. At the end of each school year, the Board shall review all the rules passed in that year and update the School Operating Manual
   5. Rules must be published in the Parents Handbook after one year of implementation
   6. Rules published in the latest Parents Handbook should supersede the new rules unless the rules are approved by the Board and announced to the parent members in theSchool Rule Change Announcement with clearly marked differences