Roles Of School Boards In Pennsylvania's Public School District

Elected by the citizens, Pennsylvania’s public school board members represent their communities’ beliefs and values when making decisions about the operations of a school district. A school board serves as the agent of the state legislature and the representatives of the community by providing a high-quality education for the students of the school district. A school board has an extremely important role for the school district in Pennsylvania, focusing on a few major responsibilities. It could be argued that two of the most important roles the school board carries is to hire a superintendent to run the school district. School boards are also responsible for recruiting, hiring and evaluating the performance of the superintendent. The other majorly emphasized job is to set policy. While the superintendent can set a directive and oversees his/her office, it is the school board who sets the legal and legislative policy to
In addition to these managerial and governmental roles, a school board also has a public relations role. School board members serve to build public support for the Pennsylvania public education system and are the voice of the community. A school board essentially acts as a link between schools and the public.
Likewise, school boards are not involved in the day-to-day operations of a district, rather they seek to ensure that the district is managed well by the superintendent and other professionals. Since school board members are not education professionals, they do not evaluate staff, except for the superintendent. Additionally, the school board is generally not involved in the hiring process of any positions, other than the superintendent and sometime positions such as treasurer, business manager, assistant superintendent,