Case Study - NZ School Boards of Trustees

School Boards of Trustees could be an ideal condidate for using Loomio. They are meant to be democratic, have a mandate, objectives, structure, need to make resolutions and vote. There are on the order of 1000 in NZ, all sharing common structure. So will first start with some background on how they are structured.

"All of New Zealand's state and state-integrated schools have a board of trustees. The board of trustees is the Crown entity responsible for the governance and the control of the management of the school. The board is the employer of all staff in the school, is responsible for setting the school's strategic direction in consultation with parents, staff and students, and ensuring that its school provides a safe environment and quality education for all its students. Boards are also responsible for overseeing the management of personnel, curriculum, property, finance and administration.

Trustees are elected by the parent community, staff members and, in the case of schools with students above Year 9, the students. The principal is also a member of the board. The board can also co-opt additional trustees. Co-option cannot be used to fill casual vacancies on a board; a board must hold a by-election to fill the casual vacancy or fill the casual vacancy by selection having first given consideration to the requirements of section 105 of the Education Act 1989.

A standard board of trustees' membership includes:

between three and seven parent elected trustees;
the principal of the school;
one staff elected trustee;
one student elected trustee (in schools with students above Year 9);
co-opted trustees; and
up to four trustees appointed by the proprietor (in state integrated schools only).

Boards of trustees must hold elections for parent and staff trustees every three years (triennial election). A board may also decide to adopt a mid-term (staggered) election cycle where half the parent representatives are elected at a mid-term election (18 months after the triennial election) and the remainder are elected at the triennial election. Elections for student trustees must be held annually in September in schools with students above Year 9."

http://www.minedu.govt.nz/Boards/EffectiveGovernance/BoardElections.aspx

The BoT often/usually has sub-committees, dealing with property, finance, employment, administration, etc.

One of the biggest issues or complaints from BoT members surrounds information sharing. Not all members receive or have access to exactly the same information. Often this is for practical reasons, the secretary doesn't have the time and budget to copy everyone on all the information received. But often this is manipulative or power broking.

I'll open this up to discussion now, solict ideas how Loomio could be used as a core mechanism in the operation of the BoTs, information sharing, voting, etc., and what some of the problems could be (and how they could be mitigated). Specifically of course, what features will be required to support BoTs and similiar types of organizations?