Thursday, 4 September 2025
Chair
David Graham, Principal, Goodwood School
Board Meetings and Delegations: Getting Them Right to Avoid Flawed Disciplinary Processes
- Consequences of not getting these right: reference to decisions of the Court/Authority involving flaws that have led to awards against school Boards for unjustified conduct
- Preparing for a Board meeting: agenda items and motions
- Holding a valid Board meeting, ensuring decisions of the Board are valid
- Valid decision making without holding a meeting
- The importance of delegations: ensuring the decision-makers have delegated authority to make decisions
- Taking care around the decision-makers: are they free from bias (or appearance of bias)?
- What can be done to correct a misstep
Presented by Kiri Harkess, Partner, McElroys
Learning Objectives:
- Learn how to properly structure and document board meetings and delegations to ensure lawful decision-making
- Identify common governance mistakes that can invalidate disciplinary processes and understand how to correct them
*Original Content was created in September 2024
Description
Attend and earn 0.5 PLD hour
* This interactive online recording includes questions and quizzes requiring critical thinking about the topics, so you have no annual limits to the number of points/hours you can claim with this format of learning. Please verify with your CPD rules
Presenters
Kiri Harkess, Partner, McElroysKiri Harkess is a civil litigator who commenced practice in 2004. She has worked at McElroys since February 2009, joining the partnership in January 2015. Kiri regularly acts for professionals facing civil claims and/or disciplinary proceedings. Kiri also leads McElroys’ employment practice, representing employers in the Authority, Employment Court and Court of Appeal. Kiri has acted for School Boards and Proprietors in matters involving employment disputes, vaccine mandates, and abuse in care.
David Graham, Principal, Goodwood School
David Graham is an experienced school leader having led three primary schools across the Waikato. He is currently the principal of Goodwood School (a primary school of 400 students) and co-leader of Te Kahūi Ako o Te Oko Horoi, the Cambridge Community of Learning. David has recently returned from the United Kingdom where he worked with the Anna Freud Centre and the national Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) programme. His research investigated policy and programmes which support learners who are neurodiverse, their peers and teachers.
