Board Recognition Program

ASBA's Boardmanship Awards Program honors individual members for their continuing education. It also recognizes entire boards whose members have all attained specified development levels. Awards are achieved through two distinct, but related, programs.

Individual awards program – members complete progressive levels of training to enhance boardmanship skills. Members earn hours through board development activities. The recognition levels of authorized activities are:

• Outstanding Board Member - at least 25 hours
• Master Board Member - at least 50 hours
• Pinnacle Award - 200 or more accumulated hours

Recognition includes lapel pins, certificates or plaques, depending on level of achievement. ASBA announces Master Board Member and Pinnacle Award recipients through news releases to local media. These individual awards tie into the next aspect of the recognition program.

Board awards program – recognizes achievement in education excellence and ethical service to students. Boards accomplish this through a shared vision, team effort and unified commitment to ensure the best possible climate and education opportunities in their communities. These three levels of awards go to entire school boards, rather than individual members.

• Outstanding Board - earned when all members have achieved the individual Outstanding Board Member award
• Master Board - earned when all members have achieved the individual Master Board Member award

The Master Board receives a commemorative plaque. After winning this award, the school district’s board is not eligible for at least five years. ASBA tracks board member’s participation in ASBA-sanctioned events, records the hours earned and notifies boards when they achieve any of these three recognition levels. Each school district must notify the Arkansas Department of Education at the end of each calendar year regarding each school board member's earned training credit toward the state-mandated requirement. ASBA's online eMembership system assists districts in keeping records, but the district is responsible for maintaining official board training records.