DIRECTORY NRCCS BOARD GOVERNANCE POLICIES
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POLICY TYPE: GOVERNANCE PROCESS
GP –1                                                        POLICY TITLE: Governance Commitment
 
The North Routt Community Charter School exists to serve the North Routt Fire Protection District and others in the community of interest who also support the vision and ends of the North Routt Community Charter School. This Board acts on behalf of these people and acts in a manner, which is consistent with the vision of the North Routt Community Charter School.
 
 
Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in July, Oct, Jan, April

GP-2                                                                          POLICY TITLE: Governing Style
 
The board will govern lawfully with an emphasis on (a) outward vision rather than an internal preoccupation, (b) encouragement of diversity in viewpoints, (c) strategic leadership more than administrative detail, (d) clear distinction of board and chief executive roles, (e) collective rather than individual decisions, (f) future rather than past or present, and (g) proactively rather than reactivity.
 
Accordingly:
 
1.  The board will cultivate a sense of group responsibility. The board, not the staff, will be responsible for excellence in governing. The board will be the initiator of policy, not merely a reactor to staff initiatives. The board will not use the expertise of individual members to substitute for the judgment of the board, although the expertise of individual members may be used to enhance the understanding of the board as a body. 
 
2.  The board will direct, control and inspire the organization through the careful establishment of broad written policies reflecting the board's values and perspectives. The board's major policy focus will be on the intended long-term impacts outside the staff organization, not on the administrative or programmatic means of attaining those effects.
 
3.  The board’s discipline will apply to matters such as attendance, preparation for meetings, policy making principles, respect of roles, and ensuring the continuance of governance capability. Although the board can change its governance process policies at any time, it will observe them scrupulously while in force.
 
4.  Continual board development will include orientation of new board members in the board's governance process and periodic board discussion of process improvement.
 
5.  The board will allow no officer, individual or committee of the board to hinder or be an excuse for not fulfilling its commitments.
 
6.  The board will monitor and discuss the board's process and performance at each meeting. Self-monitoring will include comparison of board activity and discipline to policies in the Governance Process and Board-DIRECTOR Linkage categories.
 
 
Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in July, Oct, Jan, April

GP-3                                                                 POLICY TITLE: Board Job Description
 
The job of the board is to represent and lead the school by determining and demanding appropriate and excellent organizational performance.  To distinguish the boards own unique job from the jobs of the Director and staff. The board will concentrate its efforts on the following:
 
1.  The link between the ownership and the operational organization.
 
2.  Written governing policies which address the broadest levels of all-organizational decisions and situations.
a.  Ends-  Organizational products, impacts, benefits, outcomes, recipients, and their relative worth (what good for which recipients at what cost).
b.  Executive Limitations- Constraints on executive authority, which establish the prudence and ethics boundaries within which all executive activity and decisions must take place.
c.  Governance Process- Specification of how the board conceives, carries out, and monitors its own task.
d.  Board-Director Linkage- How power is delegated and its proper use monitored; the Director role, authority and accountability.

3.  Assurance of successful Director performance.
a.  The Board will provide the Directors annual contract.


Revised July 2003
Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:   Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in July, Oct, Jan, April
GP-4                                                                          POLICY TITLE: Agenda Planning
 
The board will follow an annual agenda, which includes linkage to the ownership, explicit governing policy review, and assurance of Director performance:
 
1.  The cycle will conclude each year on the last day of (September) so that administrative planning and budgeting can be based on accomplishing a one year segment of the board’s most recent statement of long term Ends.
 
2.  The cycle will start with the board’s development of its agenda for the next year.
a.  The Board will develop a calendar that will reflect ownership linkages.
b.  Governance education, and education related to Ends determination, to be held during the balance of the year.

3.  Throughout the year, the board will attend to consent agenda items as expeditiously as possible.
 
4.  Director monitoring will be included on the agenda if monitoring reports show policy violations, or if policy criteria are to be debated.


Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method: Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency: Quartely in Aug, Nov, Feb, May
GP-4A                                                                                Agenda Planning Calendar

Month GP BDL Ends EL Other
July 1,2,3 1,2      
August 4,5,6   3,4 2,10  
September 7,8,9   5 4,5  
October 1,2,3   1,2 1,7  
November  4,5,6   3,4    
December 7,8,9   5 4,5,8  
January 1,2,3 1,2,3,4,5 1,2    
February  4,5,6   3,4 9,10  
March 7,8,9   5 4,5  
April 1,2,3   1,2    
May 4,5,6   3,4    
June 7,8,9 1,2,3,4,5 5 2,3,4,5,6,8  


Revised  July 2003
Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in Aug, Nov, Feb, May
GP-5                                                                           POLICY TITLE: Presidents Role
 
The President assures the integrity of the board's process, and occasionally represents the Board to outside parties.
 
Accordingly:
 
 
1.  The assigned result of the chairperson’s job is that the board behaves consistently with its own rules and those legitimately imposed upon it from outside the organization.
 
2.  Meeting discussion content will be on those issues which, according to board policy, clearly belong to the board to decide or to monitor. Deliberation will be fair, open, and thorough, but also timely, orderly.
 
3.  The President may delegate to other Board members authority to chair a meeting, when appropriate, but will remain accountable for their conduct.

4.  The President is responsible for signing all contracts, and legal documents, as required by law.
 
5.  The President will only act within the Policies defined by the Board. The President will refrain from exercising any authority as an individual to supervise or direct the director.         
 
6.  The President is empowered to chair board meetings with all the commonly accepted power of that position (e.g., ruling, recognizing).
 
7.  In the absence of ,or inability of the President the Secretary shall have the powers and duties of the President.


Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in Aug, Nov, Feb, May
GP-6                                                                         POLICY TITLE:  Code of Conduct

The board commits itself and its members to ethical, professional, and lawful conduct.

1. Members must have loyalty to the ownership, unconflicted by loyalties to staff, other organizations, and any personal interest as a consumer.

2.  Members must avoid conflict of interest with respect to their fiduciary responsibility.

a.  Members will annually disclose their involvement with other organizations, with vendors, or any associations that might be or might reasonably be seen as being a conflict.
b.  When the board is to decide upon an issue, about which a member has an unavoidable conflict of interest, that member shall absent herself or himself without comment from not only the vote, but also from the deliberation.
c.  Board members will not use their board position to obtain employment in the organization for themselves, family members, or close associates.

3.  Board members may not attempt to exercise individual authority over the organization.

a.  Members' interaction with the DIRECTOR or with staff must recognize the lack of authority vested in individuals except when explicitly board authorized.
b.  Members' interaction with public, press or other entities must recognize the same limitation and the inability of any board member to speak for the board except to repeat explicitly stated board decisions.
c.  Except for participation in board deliberation about whether reasonable interpretation of board policy has been achieved by the Director, members will not express individual judgments of performance of employees of the Director.  Members will not publicly make or express individual negative judgments about director or staff performance.  Any such judgments of director performance will be made openly by the board meeting in Executive Session as appropriate.


4.  Members will respect the confidentiality appropriate to issues of a sensitive nature.

5.  Members will be properly prepared for board deliberation.



Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in Aug, Nov, Feb, May
GP-7                                                      POLICY TITLE: Board Committee Principles
 
Board committees, when used, will be assigned so as to reinforce the wholeness of the board’s job and so as never to interfere with delegation from  Board to Director.
 
Accordingly:
 
1.  Board committees are to help the board do its job, not to help or advise the staff. Committees ordinarily will assist the board by preparing policy alternatives and implications for board deliberation. In keeping with the board’s broader focus, board committees will normally not have direct dealings with current staff operations.
 
2.  Board committees may not speak or act for the board except when formally given such authority for specific and time-limited purposes.  Expectations and authority will be carefully stated in order not to conflict with authority delegated to the DIRECTOR.
 
3.  Board committees cannot exercise authority over staff. Because the DIRECTOR works for the full board, he or she will not be required to obtain approval of a board committee before an executive action.   
 
4.  Board committees are to avoid over-identification with organizational parts rather than the whole. Therefore, a board committee which has helped the board create policy on some topic will not be used to monitor organizational performance on that same subject.
 
5.  Committees will be used sparingly and ordinarily in an ad hoc capacity.
 
6.  This policy applies to any group which is formed by board action, whether or not it is called a committee and regardless whether the group includes board members. It does not apply to committees formed under the authority of the DIRECTOR.


Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in Sept, Dec, March, June
GP-8                                                    POLICY TITLE:  Board Committee Structure
 
A committee is a board committee only if its existence and charge come from the board, regardless whether board members sit on the committee. Unless otherwise stated, a committee ceases to exist as soon as its task is complete.


Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in Sept, Dec, March, June
GP-9                                                                  POLICY TITLE: Financial Disclosure

As required by law, Board members shall disclose certain items received in connection with serving on the Board.  Board members receiving such items must file a report for the preceding calendar year with the county clerk and recorder on forms supplied by the secretary of state on or before January 15 of each year.  The report must contain the name of the person from whom the reportable item was received, its value and the date of receipt.

1.  Items, which must be reported, include the following:

a.  Any money received including a loan, advance or guarantee of a loan with a value of $25 or more.
b.  Any gift of any item of real or personal property other than money with a value of $50 or more.
c.  Any loan of real or personal property if the value of the loan is $50 or more.  “Value of the loan” means the cost saved or avoided by the Board member by not borrowing, leasing or purchasing comparable property from a source available to the general public.
d.  Any payment for a speech, appearance or publication.
e.  Tickets to a sporting , recreational , educational or cultural event with a value of $50 or more for a single event or a series of tickets to sporting events of a specific team during a season or to cultural events of a specific company with a total value of $100 or more.
f.  Payment of , or reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses for travel and lodging for attendance at a convention or other meeting at which the Board member or candidate for the Board is scheduled to participate unless the payment for such expenditures is made from public funds or from the funds of any association of public officials or public entities.


2.  The financial disclosure need not include the following:

a.  A contribution or contribution in kind that already has been reported pursuant to the Fair Campaign Practices Act.
b.  Any item of perishable or non-permanent value including meals unless such item is required to be reported under paragraph 1. e. above.
c.  A non-pecuniary award publicly presented by an organization in recognition of public service.
d.  Payment of or reimbursement for actual or necessary expenses for travel and lodging for attendance at a convention in which the individual is scheduled to participate if the payment or reimbursement is made from public funds or from the funds of any association of public officials or public entities.
e.  Payment of salary from employment including other government employment.

3.  To avoid misunderstanding about the value of an item, the donor must furnish the Board member with a written statement of the dollar value of the item when it is given.

4.  Board members who do not receive any reportable items are not required to file a report.


Adopted January 2000
Monitoring Method:  Board self-assessment
Monitoring Frequency:  Quarterly in Sept, Dec, March, June
© 2006 NRCCS NORTH ROUTT COMMUNITY CHARTER SCHOOL
PO Box 1002 • 54200 RCR 62 • Clark, CO 80428
Tel: 970-871-6062