Governance Scenario
Standard 4.1 · Transparent Communication and Advocacy
Three Different Messages
By Synnovate · Published 2026 · Governance Scenario
The Situation
The restructuring had been sensitive. A significant change to the senior leadership structure, presented as a strategic realignment. The board had approved it at a closed meeting. The head had communicated it to staff. A message had gone to families.
Over the following week, three separate parents reported back to the school administrator that they had spoken with board members at community events and received three noticeably different accounts of what was happening and why. One had emphasised financial pressure. One had described it as planned succession. One had said it was about performance management.
All three accounts had elements of truth. None of them was the agreed message.
Provocations
- "A board that approves a communication plan but does not follow it has not agreed on how to communicate - it has agreed on what it wishes it had communicated."
- "When board members speak informally to parents, they are not speaking as individuals. They are speaking as trustees."
- "Three different accounts of the same decision do not reflect honest diversity - they reflect a governance failure in preparing for public communication."
- "The agreed message is not a constraint on trustee honesty. It is the minimum condition for the board speaking with one voice."
Considerations
Communication from the board to the community is a governance function, not just a public relations one. When the board approves a significant decision, part of that decision is how it will be communicated - and by whom, in what form, and with what key messages. Boards that handle the decision well but communicate it inconsistently have done the harder work and missed the final step.
The challenge of informal communication is significant. Trustees are community members. They will be asked about significant school decisions in contexts where no formal communication protocol applies. Unless they have been explicitly briefed on the agreed message and the rationale behind it, they will answer from their own understanding - which will be partial, and which will reflect whichever aspect of the decision they personally found most salient.
Preparing trustees to communicate informally is not about controlling the message. It is about ensuring that the board is coherent when it speaks - that the community receives a consistent account of what happened and why, delivered by people who all understand the same story.
When inconsistent messages reach the community, the damage is often more to trust in governance than to understanding of the decision itself. The question parents are asking, when they compare three accounts, is not which one is right - it is whether the board is actually aligned.
Platforms like Loom allow governance communications to be agreed and shared with all trustees before they go out, ensuring everyone has the same information and the same framing before informal conversations begin.