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Original poster

When does a Parent Gov vacancy have to be adevrtised?

25 replies

greymatter · 18/01/2011 16:28

Hi,

My school has a vacancy for a Parent Governor and also a Parent Governor whose child left the school years ago and is no longer eleiglible to be on the committee. Are there guidelines for a timeframe for advertising vacant positions?

Thanks!

OP posts:

Original poster

greymatter · 18/01/2011 16:32

Can a Headteacher refuse to advertise Parent Governor vacancies?

OP posts:

notapizzaeater · 18/01/2011 16:38

No parent gov should be advertised. The parent giv whose child has left should be serving a "term of office" which can be still going after the child as moved on.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 18/01/2011 16:41

How long has the vacancy been open? I don't know if there are guidelines as such, it is up to the Clerk to the Governors to organise the election, so nothing to do with the headteacher, who has no power to dictate the timing. You need to find out who the clerk is and ask them when they are planning to hold the election.
Parent governors have to have a child in the school when they are elected, but may finish out that term of office even if their child has left the school. Even at the end of their term they are not necessarily ineligible to be a governor. Sometimes they may be reelected by the governing body as a community or Local Authority governor, depending on the exact make-up of the governing body, as specified in its constitution. Again, you can ask to find out in what capacity someone is sitting as a governor.

RustyBear · 18/01/2011 16:56

Generally speaking the rules are that 'at least one third' of the governors should be parents, so if this is still true, then there may not actually be a parent governor vacancy at all - it's possible that a governor has been appointed in a different category.

Original poster

greymatter · 18/01/2011 17:16

The vacancy has been there for a month and the governors were not all made aware of it. The head has said she does not going to advertise the vacancy.

OP posts:

Original poster

greymatter · 18/01/2011 17:23

Also the PG in question whose child left years ago does not attend meetings and doesn't understand why he's still a gov.

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LadyGlencoraPalliser · 18/01/2011 17:29

A month isn't that long, but an election should be held if it is definitely a parent governor vacancy. If it is a vacancy in another category the arrangements will be different. As I said in my previous post you need to contact the Clerk to the Governors to find out the arrangements for this. It has nothing to do with the head.
If the parent gov you know doesn't know why he is still a gov then he should formally resign.

Original poster

greymatter · 18/01/2011 17:31

Thanks so much for your help. We have a mountain to climb to get things running as they should.

OP posts:

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 18/01/2011 17:41

You could also call your local authority and ask to speak to an advisor from the governor services dept - they can be very helpful if you have concerns about how things are being run.

Original poster

greymatter · 18/01/2011 17:55

Thanks. There are a lot of concerns. One example being that requests by parents to see minutes of meetings are refused.

OP posts:

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 18/01/2011 17:57

That's not on. Again, ask the local authority - governor services should be sent copies of all minutes. Or you could go the Freedom of Information Act route.

Original poster

greymatter · 18/01/2011 18:09

Believe me - that's just the tip of the iceberg.

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LondonMother · 18/01/2011 21:37

As I discovered to my amazement many years ago when I was a Parent Governor, a parent governor who withdrew his child from the school in the middle of the school year, one year into a four-year term of office, was perfectly at liberty to carry on to the end of his term of office. He refused to resign, saying he could see no reason why he should, and the law was on his side.

I think you need to contact the governor services team at your LEA about the vacancy. If the governor who resigned hasn't done so formally they may not know there is a vacancy. If it's a VA school it may not be down to them anyway, depending on whether the Clerk is one of their staff or not.

Good luck!

notapizzaeater · 18/01/2011 21:39

Funnily enough I've just come back from a Gov meeting and we talked about the freedom of info act ..

The school should have a copy of the minutes to hand that anyone can request

When I had a concern I phoned the local Govenor service people and talked it through with them.

nlondondad · 18/01/2011 22:21

Apart from a confidential section in the meeting, and not all meeting agendas will have a confidential session, it occurs if you have to for example, talk about the permanent exclusion of a child, a Governing Body meeting is a public meeting, and the minutes are a public document. Some schools even publish them on their web site.

I got involved in the school GB when my daughter was at the school, but I have now sat for some years as a community governor with no children at the school.

The main thing is to contact your council and find out who the clerk is.

Ask the clerk for the membership of the GB showing Governors by type and by term of office. This will also show any vacencies.

Ask them for the minutes of the last few meetings as well.

RustyBear · 18/01/2011 22:23

LondonMother - I can't see a problem with a parent governor completing their term if their child is not still at the school- if they are elected because the other parents think they will do a good job, that won't change because they don't have a child at the school any more.

I work at a junior school ( where I have just become clerk to the governors) and if you had to have a child at the school during your whole term of office, then only Year 3 parents could be elected and only in their first term, which would be daft.

LondonMother · 18/01/2011 22:32

He and his partner withdrew their child from the school mid-year in year 2, RustyBear, and moved him to another school. It wasn't like he was elected when his child was in year 4 and wanted to carry on for a few months after the child moved to secondary school. He had three years out of his four years to go and he could see no reason why he should resign.

It was actually quite a complicated situation as his partner had worked at the school and had left. She had never made any secret of the fact that she hated the head's guts. That was tricky too.

RustyBear · 18/01/2011 22:41

But the rules have to assume that anyone elected will carry out their duties with impartiality, whatever their personal situation. You might be right in thinking that this particular governor should have felt obliged to resign, but you (and the system) can't assume that he is going to be less than 'professional' (that's not quite the right word, but I can't think of the word I want)

gingeroots · 19/01/2011 09:33

Slightly off topic ,sorry ,but people should be aware that Academies don't have to follow the "at least one third of governors should be parent governors ".
DC's Academy has a GB entirely dominated by sponsor ,one parent governor ,no staff governors and minutes that have to be individually requested from someone not at the school - no contact details are given and the more tenacious parent who managed to obtain a copy found it so abbrieviated as to be meaningless.

crazymum53 · 19/01/2011 09:56

As a former Clerk to governors for several schools I would agree with the statement that a month isn't very long. Perhaps some other governors terms of office are due to end soon and if so it would be much easier to organise one election then.
If any governor does not attend meetings (without good reason) for six months they are automatically disqualified and therefore do not need to resign.
The minutes of full governors meetings should be available on request by parents - but minutes are often not made available until they have been approved and signed to make sure they are accurate.

LondonMother · 19/01/2011 13:58

Rusty, I know what the rules were, but I felt (and so did most of the other governors and the staff) that in this chap's circumstances he didn't really have any business carrying on as a parent governor. He should have stood down and given the parents a chance to elect someone else whose children were going to be in the school for a while.

Anyway, enough of that sorry tale!

IndigoBell · 19/01/2011 14:58

LondonMother - the role of the governors (parent or otherwise) is to support and challenge the HT.

Having an overly supportive Governing Body, who refuse to see issues, is not at all helpful to the school.

If Parents want to be governors they're allowed to stand as community / LEA governors as well as parent governors.

Someone who has a genuine grievance against the school / HT is a good person to be a governor - if you actually want the school to improve.

propatria · 19/01/2011 16:06

Cant really believe that final sentence Indigo,a Governor should be a questioning friend of the shool,alive to its faults ,wanting to help it improve ,they should not be "somebody with a genuine grievance against the school/ht",actually I cant think of anyone less appropriate to be a Governor.

LondonMother · 19/01/2011 18:04

'Critical friend' was the term when I was doing all this stuff, years ago now. Actually, this discussion is reminding me vividly of why I don't bother getting involved now!

Extending · 19/01/2011 19:06

totally agree with propatria - somebody with a genuine grievance against the school/ht, is somebody with their own very specific agenda, and will therefore make a very bad governor!

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