Board guide
The board's first 90 days with a new Head
What trustees can do to help a new Head of School start well.
A new Head's first months are mostly spent learning what the board already knows. The board's job in that period is to be clear, available and restrained, in that order — and restraint is the one boards find hardest.
Before the first day
- Agree on a small number of first-year goals with the new Head; resist adding more.
- Plan a transition committee to introduce the Head to key families, alumni, donors and community leaders.
- Hand over what the Head will otherwise spend weeks discovering: the real budget position, the live personnel matters, the relationships that need care.
- Agree how the board chair and the Head will communicate, including how often and through what channel.
- Be clear about what is genuinely urgent in the first term and what can wait until the Head knows the school.
- Say plainly what the last Head found hard here. Every school has something, and the new Head will meet it in week three either way.
The first 90 days
| Period | What the board should expect |
|---|---|
| Days 1–30 | Listening. The Head is meeting people and learning the school's own account of itself. |
| Days 31–60 | Patterns. Early reads on what works, what does not, and what the board may not have said. |
| Days 61–90 | First judgments, shared with the chair before anyone else. Still few decisions, deliberately. |
| End of term one | A considered view of the year's priorities, agreed with the board rather than announced to it. |
The board chair's job, specifically
- Be reachable. A new Head with a question on a Sunday should know they can ask it.
- Route trustee concerns through yourself rather than letting them reach the Head directly, and tell the board that is the expectation.
- Say the quiet things out loud: who on the board is difficult, which donor relationships are fragile, what the last Head and the board disagreed about.
- Give feedback early and in small amounts. The first correction is far easier in month two than in month ten.
- Protect the Head's time from the board. Trustees with projects multiply quickly in a first year.
What gets a strong start wrong
- Trustees arriving with individual agendas and the authority of the board behind them.
- A long list of first-year goals, which guarantees the Head will miss some of them.
- Expecting visible change in the first term, when the useful work is listening.
- Leaving a difficult inherited decision undiscussed until the Head stumbles into it.
- A predecessor who stays close, formally or informally, and becomes the place staff take their appeals.
- Silence. A new Head with no feedback for six months assumes the worst.
Signs it is going well, and signs it needs attention
- Going well: the Head is asking harder questions in month three than in month one.
- Going well: senior administrators are bringing problems to the Head rather than around them.
- Needs attention: the chair and the Head are communicating mainly through others.
- Needs attention: trustees are hearing about school matters from staff before they hear from the Head.
- Needs attention: the Head has made no decision anyone disagreed with. That usually means they are being managed, not leading.
By the end of the first year
- Hold a structured, supportive first-year review against the goals agreed at the start.
- Ask the Head what the board can do differently, and write the answer down.
- Revisit the goals for year two together, rather than handing them down.
- Check how the Head is actually doing, not only how the school is doing. The two diverge before anyone says so.
- Review the board's own performance in the transition while it is still fresh. It is the last chance to learn from it cheaply.
Most Heads who leave early do not fail at the job. They fail at the relationship with the board, and that relationship is set in the first year.
IndySchool Consultancy · indyschoolconsultancy.com · tim@indyschoolconsultancy.com