Boardmanship Awards
To encourage and reward school board members for pursuing their inservice training, ASBA sponsors a Boardmanship Awards Program. The program honors not only individual members for their continuing education, but also recognizes entire boards whose members have all attained various training levels. Awards are achieved through two distinct but interrelated programs.

The first is an awards program for individuals to certify that participants have completed progressive levels of inservice training. The program also recognizes other efforts to enhance personal boardmanship skills, as well as to promote the local board and ASBA.

These awards emphasize training and participation that exceed the state mandate for board training. The awards, which are based on a prescribed point system related to specific criteria, have four levels:

1. Honor Board Member, achieved by accumulating 15 hours in such authorized activities as training sessions, serving as a panelist, or testifying on behalf of ASBA before legislative committees.
2. Outstanding Board Member, which reflects accumulation of 25 hours in authorized activities.
3. Master Board Member, signifying an accrual of 50 authorized hours.
4. Pinnacle Award, representing 200 accumulated hours.

Recognition items include lapel pins, certificates, or plaques. Recipients are announced through ASBA news releases to local media. Further, these awards tie into the next aspect of the recognition program.

The second prong of ASBA’s program to encourage and honor boardmanship is a school board recognition program. It singles out Arkansas school boards that achieve education excellence and ethical service to students through a shared vision, team effort, and unified commitment to ensure the best possible climate and program for education opportunities in their communities.

These awards go to entire school boards, rather than individual members, at three levels:

1. Honor Board, a designation earned when every member of a board’s directors have achieved the individual Honor Board Member status.
2. Outstanding Board, indicating that all members have met the minimum criteria for the individual Outstanding Board Member award, plus other hours that rank the board among the top ten percent of Arkansas boards for participating in training and meeting other criteria.
3. Master Board, which is the highest recognition for a board that has met the maximum objective criteria and is among the top five percent of such boards in the state. Additional subjective criteria and documentation are necessary, and a committee determines the award recipients.

The Master Board receives a plaque commemorating the award, and the name of the board is added to a permanent plaque displayed in the ASBA office. After winning this award, the same school district’s board isn’t eligible to be considered for it again for at least five years.

ASBA tracks board member’s participation in ASBA-sanctioned events, recording the hours earned and notifying boards when they achieve any of the three recognition levels.

Related Links:
Training Overview
Training Events
ASBA Awards Programs

Related Downloads (pdf):
Handbook for Arkansas School Board Members
ASBA Boardmanship Program