Every fall, about a month or so into the school year, the questions start. A parent doesn't love the placement their child landed in. A family wants a policy explained, or exempted, or reversed. And somewhere on an all-parent board, at least one of those parents is also a trustee.

I spent eight years navigating exactly that overlap as a head of school, and if there's one governance lesson I'd hand a new head or a new trustee before September even started, it's this: a trustee is a parent first. The trustee hat goes on over the parent hat. It never replaces it.