by Marc de Vries
marc@vries.net
The Board of Trustees held its first retreat of the year on Thursday 28 August in the newly renovated MPB rooms. The main purpose of the meeting was to prepare for next school year, including establishing board goals and aligning them with the school’s Strategic Learning Plan. Please find below a summary and a brief discussion of some of the Board’s focus points for the coming year.
Generative Thinking
As part of the Board’s ongoing training efforts, Bambi Betts provided a workshop on Board Development. Bambi is the Director of the Principal’s Training Center, and a thought leader in international school leadership and governance. Her efforts as facilitator of the ISB 2020 exercise two years ago led to the school’s vision where passion, and voice and choice have taken center stage. This time around Bambi helped strengthen the Board’s effectiveness in generative thinking. Generative thinking frames the issues that we discuss, and determines what needs deciding before we make decisions. Doing this successfully will help the Board improve its fiduciary and strategic duties and better help us in defining ISB’s future. It’s our intention to make more use of generative questions at Board meetings.
Head of School Evaluation
A key role of the Board is to evaluate the Head of School which is completed twice per year. Normally, this is not something that is commented on in the Board Chair letter, but in this case I would like to recognize Dr. Davies’ excellent work running the school over the past two years. We are truly fortunate to have Dr. Davies as our Head of School and look forward to yet another year of progress and development with respect to learning.
Safety and Security
Last year, ISB reviewed its safety and security procedures and has implemented several improvements that make the school a safer place. While already much has been done and it may be impossible to plan for all contingencies, safety and security will remain high on the agenda. One of ISB’s unique features is the role the campus plays in the community during and after school hours. We realize that proposed security measure will need to strike a balance between perceived risks to the school and ISB’s distinguishing open character.
School Enrollment
Following a trend of increasing enrollment over the past few years, opening enrollment is the highest it has ever been at this campus. Grades 1,3,5,6 and 8 are at full capacity. The Board will work closely with the administration to evaluate the need to address capacity issues and to determine how to provide for an increasing student population.
Inclusion
Inroads have been made towards supporting students of a wider range of academic backgrounds to attend ISB. This Inclusion initiative has the full support of the Board because ISB will be providing a more complete service to expatriate families, and it is an important step towards individualized learning for all students. Implementation of the inclusion initiative will continue with a slow approach so the impact on the school and the required resources can be appropriately assessed.
BOT Members
The Board Members and elected officers are as follows:
Ira Blumenthal
Dr. Sumiter Broca, Secretary
Gurdist Chansrichawla
Dr. Prathip Chiaravanond
Nimit Damrongrat
Joy Davy
Marc de Vries, Chair
Brent Gros
William Harvey
John Heinecke
Jack Kraprayoon, Vice-Chair
Kristina Kvien
Eric Ma
Kevin Sypolt, Treasurer
Vacancy
An appointed Board seat is vacant and the selection process has started to appoint a suitable candidate.
The next Board meeting will be held on Tuesday September 16th, 2014 in MPB3 at 6:00pm – 09:00pm. The meeting is open for all ISA members to attend.
Yours sincerely,
Marc de Vries
BOT Chair