The role of a school board is generally to establish the school’s strategic direction, monitor its performance and report on its management and operations to the stakeholders, including teachers, parents and the education authorities.
Private schools have the advantage of having their own, decentralised governance structure, which makes decision-making more timely and agile. The risk, however, is that flawed governance may go under the radar, lead to a toxic school culture and in turn influence school morale and educational outcomes.
The findings of two distinct inquiries commissioned by the board of the independent San Andrea School point to a number of governance failures that seem to have persisted for some time.
The current school board should be commended for commissioning these investigations into allegations of financial impropriety made by a former school assistant head. The former assistant head was right to go public with his allegations.
The existence of those failures is evident from what the school said was “a list of 30 recommendations to promote accountability and better governance at the school” made by Judge David Scicluna. His is one of two reports – which have not been made public – dealing with the allegations. He concluded that “several” claims were unsubstantiated but also found a “pervasive attitude of bullying and arrogance” in a school run as a “fiefdom”.
Consultancy firm PWC, in the second report, concluded that, prima facie, the financial fraud alleged by the assistant head was not substantiated as the “money was actually used to build a multipurpose hall and on expensive refurbishment”. However, it flagged up “a list of inconsistencies and red flags over past cases of financial mismanagement”. The police have now stepped in to conduct their own investigation.
School boards have lessons to learn from these worrying findings. The main one is that every school needs to have an integrity framework to ensure nothing gets in the way of its primary mission of education.
For one, parents need to pay close attention to the criteria for appointing school board members. Those who serve on a school’s board have a duty to always act in good faith in the organisation’s best interest.
Both board members and senior administration officials must undergo a thorough fit and proper scrutiny to ensure they have the right mix of skills, experience and integrity to assume their leadership responsibilities.
They must also have the diligence to prevent mismanagement by administrative officials responsible for the school’s day-to-day running. Given the sophistication of modern schools, it is unrealistic to expect that board members can devote sufficient time to all areas of the school activity. The creation of sub-committees can mitigate this problem. On the other hand, schools must guard against developing sub-cultures based on a clique mentality where a few staff members define their own governance rules to the detriment of other stakeholders.
It is the responsibility of a school board to define policies in critical areas of the school’s activities, including financial management and the prevention of conflicts of interest. This would all be part of an effective integrity framework to achieve the objectives of the school.
San Andrea has pledged to “fix things which are broken” and to “start afresh and rebuild trust”.
Only full honesty and disclosure, at the very least to parents and teachers – the stakeholders who matter the most – will enable the school to put this ugly episode behind it and restore its damaged reputation for the good of all. Schools remain too important a pillar for our society.