Northshore board staff recommend cutting governance parameters from 14 to 9 to reduce duplicate reporting

Superintendent Dr. Irish told the Northshore School District Board that staff have consolidated the district's governance parameters to reduce duplication and make monitoring more coherent. "We've we've essentially reduced the quantity of parameters from 14 to 9," Dr. Irish said, adding the changes aim to move operational student‑learning detail into the strategic-plan goal reports so teams report the intended outcome once rather than repeatedly.

Board President Hayes framed the redesign as part of long-standing policy governance practice adopted in 2017, saying the model keeps the board at a strategic level and provides guardrails during crises. "Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good," Hayes said, urging the board to treat the revisions as part of an iterative process.

Staff and board members described specific shifts: communication and some public-records language was clarified for measurability; multiple budget- and planning-related parameters were synthesized into a single "financial administration" parameter; asset-protection language was relocated into financial administration; and one parameter (formerly P11 in older numbering) was removed because its content was subsumed elsewhere. Dr. Irish said the redline version identifies which language moved into which goal report to preserve content while eliminating redundancy.

The administration emphasized embedding racial and educational justice across goal reports rather than leaving it in a separate silo. Dr. Irish said the intent is that "racial and educational justice is intentionally called out in every action that we do" and that disaggregated data and equitable practices should be visible in goal reporting.

Board members raised drafting and clarity concerns, noting typos and problematic phrasing such as double negatives (frequent "shall not fail to" constructions). Director Sanderson recommended editorial fixes to remove doubled negatives and to improve plain-language clarity so requirements read positively where possible.

Next steps: staff asked board members to review the redline and clean versions in two-on-one meetings and said they may bring the package back for a study session or put revised parameters on a future agenda for formal adoption. President Hayes and staff indicated they aim to complete parameter adoption before August to align calendaring for the next school year; staff also said the work will remain iterative and will be revisited when the strategic plan is refreshed.