The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between selected characteristics of school board members and public school systems in Indiana and the educational progressivism of board members as measured by the attitudinal responses of board members to statements on an instrument pertaining to controversial educational practices and issues.A major theoretical perspective adopted in the study involved the notion that attitudes of school board members may be differentiated by structural and contextual characteristics related to the school systems of board members in addition to, or rather than by, background characteristics of board members.Data pertaining to the background characteristics and attitudes of board members were obtained from a two-section instrument. Section I contained items designed to elicit information pertaining to the background characteristics of board members, while Section II contained a modified version of Education Scale VII that was employed for assessing progressivist attitudes.Stratified random sampling techniques, based upon the student enrollment of Indiana school systems, were used to select a sample of 524 school board members. The 524 school board members selected for the sample were administered the two-section instrument by mail. Two mailings resulted in 302 usable instrument copies being returned.Data pertaining to the selected school system variables were obtained, except data pertaining to the variable of study council affiliation which were obtained from a doctoral dissertation, from statistical reports furnished by a Division of the Indiana Department of Public Instruction.A correlation matrix was generated from the data for analysis of the simple relationships between all combinations of the continuous independent variables and the dependent variable by pairs. The one-way analysis of variance procedure was utilized for analysis of the simple relationships between. the categorical independent variables and variables contained in the matrix.Multiple regression statistical techniques were employed for analysis of the collective contributions of the selected independent variables to the variance of the dependent variable when the variance shared by other independent variables in a set was statistically controlled. The various multiple regression computations were utilized for analysis of two null hypotheses formulated for investigation relative to the relationship between selected background and school system variables and educational progressivist attitudes. On the basis of the findings, the two null hypotheses were held as being tenable.Major conclusions, among others, derived from the findings included:1. The findings do not support the proposition, as traditionally advanced in the literature, that age related to progressivist attitudes.2. None of the six background variables included in the investigation are strong and reliable predictors of educational progressivist attitudes among Indiana school board members.3. Two of the eight school system variables included in the investigation, student enrollment and teacher training and experience index, are relatively strong indicators of educational progressivist attitudes among Indiana school board members, but only when the contributions to the variance of educational progressivist attitudes shared by the two variables and other selected school system variables are not statistically controlled.4. The attitudes Indiana school board members hold regarding practices and issues in public education are varied and complex and do not lend easily to generalization on the basis of any one single dimension related to the backgrounds or school systems of board members.

The study is a history and development of the role of the Indiana township trustee in managing the educational affairs of the public schools in rural Indiana from 1859 through 1959. The century time span started in 1859 when the state legislature enacted a law that reduced the number of trustees per township from three to one. The concluding year, 1959, the School Reorganization Act set in motion the machinery by which school consolidation was encouraged and hastened. The Act phased out trustees as administrators of school corporations.The origin of the word township came from the Germanic clans where it was called a mark and dates to about 100-44 B.C. The mark was a hedge that surrounded the clan and was used for protection as well as identification. The Anglo-Saxons carried the mark concept to England and called it tunscipe. In England, tunscipe developed into a geographic and political unit. Tunscipe literally means "the people living within the hedge."Implanted in New England by the first English settlers, the tunscipe idea evolved into the town meeting that became the unit of local government for the new colonies. The town meeting concept of local government appeared in modified form in the 1785 Northwest Ordinance. The pattern of local government for the states carved from the Northwest Territory was the township unit. Management of all township political affairs, including common schools, became the sole responsibility of an elected township trustee.

The study was designed to identify the information sources utilized by school board members to secure factual data and background information essential to the making of decisions; to discover the perceived degree of satisfaction with information sources so identified; and to identify other sources of information with potential for providing a knowledge base to school board members. The study population included presidents of Indiana boards of school trustees who held membership in the Indiana School Boards Association during 1973.Specifically, the study was designed to:1. Identify sources of information utilized by school board members to gain needed data and/or facts essential to support decision-making in selected areas.2. Determine the degree of satisfaction with information sources utilized as perceived by school board members.3. Identify the various factors and/or conditions which tend to restrict or hamper more complete utilization of available information sources by board members.4. Secure suggestions as to how information services currently available through identified sources and agencies might be more adequately and completely utilized.5. Secure suggestions relative to possible additional information sources and agencies through which helpful and needed information and data should or might be made available.Data for the study were secured by means of a questionnaire instrument relative to six problem areas of common concern to Indiana school districts. Out of the291 questionnaires sent a total of 49 questionnaires were returned, initially. A follow-up letter was sent to all study population members regarding responses. A total of five questionnaires were returned from the follow-up. Thus, a total of 54 questionnaires were received. Review of research revealed no studies dealing directly with information sources identified as used by school board members. As a result, none of the instruments utilized in closely related studies were considered appropriate for use in the current study. An information gathering instrument was designed especially for the study utilizing the ten step criteria by Hillway for instrument construction. Validation of the questionnaire instrument was accomplished through field testing. The instrument was refined into final form following field testing procedures. The data were presented as raw responses, as percentages relative to the relationship between the mentioned frequency responses and the "N" number of total responses, and as weighted satisfaction means. Utilization o f weighted satisfaction means permitted the quality and value of each main identified information source to be determined regarding each of the six areas of concern.A summary of findings was organized concerning the six problem areas of common concern and the information obtained relative to the five specific aspects of the study.Study Findings1. Boards of education have need for in-depth information.2. Depending upon the type of problem faced by school board members, many governmental, public, industrial, and social agencies are utilized as information sources.3. Problems of specialized concern to board members may require specialized information sources.4. In terms of use and reported value of information some sources are consistently utilized regardless of the problem. Three such sources were the Superintendent, Indiana School Boards Association, and Professional Journals and Magazines.5. Though widely used, Mass Media was lacking in creditability, and information, when finally received, was too fragmented and too late to provide information of use to boards of education.6. Two general restricting factors for obtaining information were a lack of accurate information and difficulties involved in securing dependable information at the time needed.7. The need to improve upon fiscal responsibility relative to new programs or modifications of current programs exists at the state education level.8. State agencies need to improve channels of communication relative to supervising and coordinating programs for local school districts.9. An apparent need exists for improvement of relationships between Legislators and the Indiana State Department of Public Instruction.

The purpose of the study was to determine if a particular school board bargaining team composition resulted in shorter negotiating time for teacher-school board contract settlement and if a particular composition of the school board bargaining team resulted in lower cost increases for salaries and fringe benefits that result from a negotiated teacher-school board contract.The study was limited to all school districts in Indiana in which a teacher-school board contract was negotiated for the 1975-76 school year. The study was restricted to the 1975-76 contract negotiations.The study was limited further in that only the composition of the school board bargaining team as related to time/cost factors were examined.A review of literature and related research revealed that the recommendations regarding bargaining team composition were diverse and that many different bargaining team compositions had been used by school boards in Indiana.All superintendents of school systems in Indiana where a teacher-school board contract was negotiated for the 1975-76 school year comprised the population for the study.Seventeen null hypotheses were developed relative to school board bargaining team composition and time/cost factors.A questionnaire, with a cover letter and an endorsement from the Indiana School Boards Association, was mailed to 280 Indiana school superintendents. Responses were received from 228 superintendents after two mailings. Responses to the questionnaire were recorded on contin-gency tables to allow chi-square analysis to be utilized to statistically test the hypotheses. The .05 level was established as the level of confidence to reject a null hypothesis.The findings were based on data presented in Chapter IV. 1. School board bargaining teams with school board members, teams with superintendents without school board members, and other teams were significantly different in the amount of time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.2. School board bargaining teams with board members and teams without superintendents or board members were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.3. School board bargaining teams with superintendents without board members and teams without superintendents or board members were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.4. School board bargaining teams with superintendents and teams without board members or superintendents were significantly different in the amount of time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.5. School board bargaining teams with board members and/or superintendents and teams without board members or superintendents were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.6. School board bargaining teams having chief spokesmen with different titles were significantly different in the time required to negotiate a teacher-school board contract.No other significant differences relative to team composition and time/cost factors were discovered.The following conclusions were based on the data presented in Chapter IV and the findings related to the hypotheses.1. School board bargaining teams with superintendents as members and school board bargaining teams with superintendents and board members as members tended to negotiate teacher-school board contracts in a shorter amount of time than teams composed of persons other than superintendents or board members.2. Superintendents and school board members as chief spokesmen for the school board bargaining team tended tonegotiate a teacher-school board contract in less time than teams with other persons as spokesmen.3. Administrators other than the superintendent as spokesmen tended to take a longer amount of time to negotiate a teacher-school board contract than all other spokesmen.4. School board bargaining team composition was not significantly related to the increased cost of salaries and fringe benefits that resulted from a negotiated teacher-school board contract.54

The purpose of the study was to determine the perceptions of Indiana school board presidents and superintendents on recommendations for board governance. A second purpose was to determine the current usage of these recommendations for board governance among Indiana school boards.A questionnaire consisting of 42 Likert-response items was mailed to the superintendent and board president of the 294 public school districts in Indiana. The return rate was 63 percent for board presidents and 82 percent for superintendents.The following conclusions were formulated: (a.) board presidents appear most likely to support recommended changes in school board governance in areas of Planning, Board Development, Collective Bargaining, and Curriculum/Staff Development; (b.) superintendents appear most likely to support recommended changes in school board governance in the areas of Board Development, Collective Bargaining, and Curriculum/Staff Development; (c.) board presidents and superintendents appear most likely to differ in their responses to recommendations for changes in school board governance in the areas of Planning, Personnel, Managing Schools and Budget; (d.) board presidents and superintendents from the same school districts are not likely to differ significantly in their opinions about whether or not their board is currently practicing recommended changes in school board governance.Indiana board presidents nor superintendents agreed with authorizing charter schools, hiring administrative law judges or other qualified third parties to hear appeals on students and staff members' due process rights, or establishing a procedure outside of the school board for hearing and deciding constituent complaints. Nor did they agree the board should grant full authority to the administration to approve individual claims or approve change orders on construction projects less than $1,000,000. / Department of Educational Leadership