What sort of person makes a good/suitable parent governor ?

[whoknowsyou]

Vacancy coming up at school and I'm considering standing but I know there will be competition as there are parents who have already thrown their hat in the ring and are badgering other parents to support them in due course when it comes to voting.

I'm getting the impression that the Head has postponed the closing date for applications twice, with a new letter sent home each time asking us to get in touch if we wish to discuss applying for the vacancy, because they or the other governors are not keen on the people who have applied already and want a wider choice of candidates.

Would I be any use......

What makes a good parent governor ? Someone with an agenda that they want to work through ? Someone who can see the big picture ? Someone with more of an eye for detail ?

What do people think of their own schools' parent governors ?

Thoughts welcome please.

One of our governors used to routinely take their child out of school to go to 2nd home abroad for last 3 weeks of each December term. They only stopped when eldest got to y10 or 11, I think.

Bullies to who? who do they bully? teachers? the head?

Bullying the other governors, basically there was a small Cabal of the Leaders and anyone who tried to express a minority opinion was ignored or blanked at best. I was on a preschool committee with one of these people so the stories came as no surprise to me. Eg: repeated allegations about governors bagging places on school trips and when another governor tried to question the ethics of that they were blanked and ignored. Whispers of far worse but the governor who resigned on back of feeling fed up was terrified she'd be punished for breaking confidentiality so wouldn't say more. You bet if she loved the experience and thought they were all great to work with, and talked about that loads, that no one would accuse her of breaking confidentiality.

I do think you should set an example.
I turned down the offer of a term time holiday paid for by my parents because I felt I needed to do as I say at the expense of some bad feeling in my family.
I would have felt the weight of disapproval if I didn't. Ditto not pulling your weight. Non-attendance at meetings or training would be very frowned upon. If you aren't prepared to make some sacrifices you should step aside and let someone else do it.