School governors - are they being exploited

[Whyhaveibeencutoutofmamsnot]

A good friend became a school governor a couple of years back and apart from a meeting each term and the odd visit to school everything was fine.
It then began to escalate - can you be governor for this group of subjects (have to go in extra to see the lessons plus curriculum meetings), can you be on the standards committee, the safeguarding committee etc etc all of which involve training, meetings and loads of stuff to read. The chair (also voluntary) has loads more to do - his car seems to always be at the school whenever my friend is there.
Am I being unreasonable to think that governors are being exploited to do all this work on a voluntary basis?

im not sure exploited is the right word

dh is a school governor and has been asked to do a lot extra including consider taking over as chair! (No thanks)

However he has just said no to almost everything due to time (he works more than FT hours).
He contributes fully at governor meetings and that is appreciated.

I agree. School governance is a fairly substantial role if you are willing to commit and do it properly.

Controversial opinion but having worked in education for decades, it’s also all a bit pointless. The most strategic and important thing they can do for a school is appoint the right Head. The rest is flim flam. Even more so now MATs dominate the landscape.

School governor is a voluntary role so exploited is harsh.
Part of the duties involve monitoring activity in the classroom along with overseeing processes and the school budget. It’s a big commitment to a school.

They are not being exploited, they are volunteering. If they don't want to do something, they can say no and step away, the same as any other volunteering role.

No they're not.

They're simply being asked if they can take on extra duties and the answer to that is a simple yes or no.

I was a gov for 15 years and never felt put upon, even when I eventually became chair.

I am a Governor
We get asked to do a lot but I just say no to any sub committees and other things
There is one additional thing i do (exclusion Panels) but I choose to

Also, some of the governors are often retired or work part time and are happy to give up more of their time than the others.

People just do what works for them.

It is a big commitment and I’m not sure that’s made clear to new governors. I think the roles and responsibilities come as a shock to a lot of people. If your governing board is run properly it’s not pointless. The governing board has important statutory duties. I’m a governor at two schools and spend a lot of time doing it, but that’s what I volunteered for and I enjoy it.

School Governors are the biggest voluntary workforce in the UK. I learnt that on a training course as a governor!

It is a lot of work but maybe the fact of it being volunteers means that people really want to do it. I’m not sure, I do get that it does seem strange to do so much work for free.

Yup, I was a school governor for a (very) short period of time and was utterly disillusioned with how things were run. It was a church primary school under LA control, and virtually everything important was decided upon by either the church or the LA. Governors had very little say in anything really, just there to "rubber stamp" the decisions made between the head, the church and the LA.

The killer blow for me (and another governor) was when we spent an entire evening discussing one specific topic for which a special meeting had been called. We ended up with a vote, and then we were told they were doing it their way anyway as it was the only option suitable for the church and LA - it was clear they were just expecting us to rubber stamp their decision (again) and when we didn't, they ignored the vote anyway. What a waste of an evening!

It's not 'exploited' if they are willing to take on the extra work.

It's no different to any voluntarily job. I was a Scout leader and that is definitely not all about just turning up for 2 hours on a Tuesday evening.

'The chair (also voluntary) has loads more to do - his car seems to always be at the school whenever my friend is there.'

Or is this statement about something else entirely, OP?

My DH is a School Governor. I wouldn't say he is exploited but he certainly wasn't told the whole truth about how much work it would be when he volunteered and he's been subjected to a fair bit of emotional blackmail to take on additional roles. (It's a small village school with a shortage of volunteeers.) Fortunately his work allows a certain amount of time off each year for voluntary work as part of their social responsibility policy but it still eats into weekends and evenings considerably. It's a pretty thankless task from what I can see - there's responsibility without any real authority. I wouldn't do it, and I do quite a bit of volunteering in different areas.

I was a school governor for over a decade until moving house. Appointing the Head was the most important thing I was involved in.

I have very little faith in governing bodies particularly as many academies have a central body. Even before that as a Governor I felt decisions were manipulated as the governing body is made up by individuals the school wants in most cases. Utterly pointless especially as they have say in senior appointments and ratify some policies - if things go wrong they can just walk away. Maybe the intention is sound but in practice a absolute whitewash

Okay I agree that exploited is probably too strong a word. However it is hard for many people to say no - perhaps they are the sort who become governors in the first place want to help the children and the school.
Like teacher workload the work and responsibility increases slowly so it is not noticed. Plus parents are quicker to email the chair of governors now than they were when my children were smaller.

All people doing voluntary work are exploited. You really need to say no all the time or you end up with a full time not paid job.

Wait until you hear about magistrates and how our legal system entirely relies on volunteers going above and beyond - I suspect it happens in all walks of volunteering.

It's a voluntary role - if you don't have time to be the chair or to be on x committee then you can decline. It can be a very rewarding role - am not exactly clear what your point is...

I've been a school governor and I work in education in a related area. The issue I think is not so much the level of workload, nor the limits on governor authority, but schools' lack of transparency sometimes in clearly communicating both the workload and the boundaries of the role to potential governor candidates. It's always annoying to find one has accepted a role that involves far more than was explained at the start.

Having said that, the role and workload of school governors has changed beyond recognition in the last 25 years - mainly because of ongoing accretion to the extensive statutory framework within which school governance operates, all of which generates more work, additional training requirements and so on. School governance is no longer about attending a few committee meetings and a celebratory assembly; these days it's much more like running a business, with a lot of financial monitoring. The current level of workload and responsibility have made it a less attractive voluntary role to many potential candidates than was once the case, and nationally there is an overall shortfall of governors to fill existing places.

It would be easier to get new volunteers if governance responsibilities were substantially slimmed down. But to do that would involve government making significant changes to parts of the existing legislative framework for education that governance works within. And at the moment it is illegal to pay school governors (other than in a very few well defined exceptional circumstances) , and there is no money in the system to do so. So the school governance system plods on, but with a lot of creaking and sometimes stretching volunteers' goodwill to the limit.

Problem is recruiting governors so the ones you have, have to take on more responsibilities and they eventually step down and it just gets worse

I was a governor and although it was a huge time committment I learned so much it was worth it. I felt I made a difference at the school in a time of change, and I learned new skills that have supported a change of career.

I think the key is that you can say no at any point to additional responsibility - and in my time lots of people did, usually due to work committments.

Having worked in education for many years… the main member of staff being exploited is the TA .
this didn’t used to be the case , but now they are often responsible for all break duties , lunchtimes , paid shockingly, expected to cover classes during ppa and sickness .
least the governors get a cup of tea sat down 😳

I did 10 years...it is so much more than people realise. It's a hugely important role, but to be a good, effective governor, it is a very time consuming role.

This is poor practice.

I'm a school governor and we are honest and upfront with new recruits about the time commitment required. People can choose not to get involved if they decide that it's too much. It is important to us to ensure that people understand what they're taking on, as it puts too much pressure on existing governors if the new ones don't take on their fair share of the work.

That said, there are sometimes exceptions made for longstanding or highly skilled governors who have something valuable to contribute but can't commit to all of the extras because of other pressures - and that's a decision for the governing body as a whole.

It isn't exploitation at all. Nobody has to do it. But the school/chair should be honest from the initial enquiry about the level of commitment required.