Governance support for school boards.
Uriah Ward Consulting partners with school boards, district leaders, community organizations, and labor groups to strengthen governance practices.
Services Offered
General Board Governance Training
Effective governance starts with clarity. Trainings ground board members in the historical origins and modern development of school board authority. We dive into the debate on governance and work through where to draw the line between governance and administration. Board members are provided with a clear picture of the methods by which they can drive change in their school districts. Boards leave with a shared understanding of their power and their limits.
North Star Governance Model Training and Implementation
Uriah Ward created the North Star Governance Model to help boards lead effectively alongside their communities. The governance model packet is available for free on this website. It is detailed enough for districts to be able to implement it without hiring an outside consultant, but Uriah can provide training on this model and can provide assistance with implementation if needed.
Board Team-Building
A board is only as effective as its ability to work as a team. This training helps boards build internal norms, establish clear processes, and develop the trust needed to navigate disagreement productively. The goal is a board that functions well together, even when members don’t agree on everything.
Co-Governance Training
Community organizations, parent groups, unions, and school board members can achieve more together than they can alone. This training brings board members and coalition partners into the same room to clarify who does what, build mutual understanding, and develop a shared strategy for driving change. Boards and partners leave with a working model for collaboration, not just good intentions.
Collective Bargaining & Meet-and-Confer Training
Board members often want to engage in the bargaining process but don’t know where to start. This training walks boards through what to expect, how to prepare, and how to participate effectively alongside their district’s bargaining team.
Conference Presentations & Panels
Available for conference presentations and panel discussions on school board governance, drawing on direct board experience, doctoral research, and published analyses of governance models and school board authority.
Guiding Values
Student-Centered
Our students should be at the forefront of every decision we make as board members.
Democratic Governance
School boards are the mechanism by which communities exercise democratic control over public education. District decisions should be made in collaboration with the board and with community.
Role Clarity
School boards are ultimately responsible for everything in the school district. The role of the superintendent is determined by the board, who should be given clear guidance for their work and be able to do that work without being micromanaged.
Commitment to Public Education
Traditional public schools are the best way to meet the needs of our students. I work exclusively with public school districts and public school boards.
Transparency
Boards should operate in the open. Public trust is earned through transparent, honest, and collaborative discussion.
Workers as Partners
Educators and school employees are partners, not obstacles, in the work of educating students.
Local Expertise
I can help support a board’s development and its work, but every district knows its own community better than I do. My role is to share what I’ve learned and help as I’m able, not to push my own conclusions onto a community I don’t live in.
About Uriah Ward
Uriah Ward has served on the Saint Paul Public Schools Board of Education since 2022 and currently serves as Board Chair. Early in his board service, he took part in a governance training built around a model he found fundamentally anti-democratic, one that asked the board to cede its authority rather than exercise it responsibly. He pushed back, and the board ultimately rejected it. In its place, Uriah developed the governance model SPPS uses today, one built on democratic accountability, community collaboration, and goal-setting. That experience, seeing firsthand how the wrong model can hollow out a board’s power, is what led him into this work.
In his time on the board, Uriah has worked directly with the challenges every school board faces: understanding the board’s authority, building an effective working relationship with administration, navigating collective bargaining, and keeping the board’s work focused on students.
Uriah is a doctoral candidate in Public Administration at Valdosta State University. His dissertation focuses on school board governance and he plans to defend his research before the end of 2026. He works in the labor movement and unionized his own workplace when he was a student financial aid counselor at Augsburg University. That experience gives him a firsthand understanding of what it means to organize workers and negotiate as a partner, not an adversary, a perspective he brings directly to his training on collective bargaining and meet-and-confer processes. He conducts an annual training for labor-endorsed school board members in Minnesota and has begun offering consulting services in other states.
He is a former middle school teacher and is married to a special education teacher. He lives on the East Side of Saint Paul with his wife and his two young children. He does this work because he knows how critical effective school boards are for student success and wants to give other board members the tools they need to manage their districts and serve their kids.