Summary of the Carver Policy Governance Model

Prepared by Ginny Jaramillo, January 2000 

The Job of the Board

The board of an organization is responsible for knowing who the “owners” of the organization are, and who the “customers” (or clients) are. The board’s duty, then, is to concentrate on the goals and visions (or desired “ends”) of the owners, ensuring that the organization is responsible for achieving those ends. Once the board’s policies are in place, the board does not focus on customer issues, because that is the job of the staff. In cases such as schools, where owners and customers may overlap or be the same, the board deals with people who come to them in the role of an owner. People who come to the board in the role of a customer are referred to the head administrator, who represents the staff. This means that the staff deals with the daily operation of the school, and the board deals with four major areas of its job description:

Board Policies

There are four different categories of board policies, and all board policies must fall into one of these categories:

Key Features of the Model

Some Advantages of this Model over the “Conventional” Approach

Retrieved [18 August 2006] from http://www.ruralschools.net/sitepages/pid74.php. (Link no longer available)