What is an "Advisory Council?"

There are three types of Boards or Councils that are most common to Catholic or independent schools, each of which varies in structure and authority:  

A “Board of Trustees” (BOT) model is typical of most independent schools. It is comprised of either elected members (voted by the parents of the school) or appointed members (by the recommendation and approval of existing Trustees). As its name implies, an “independent” school BOT  operates distinct from any higher “authority,” like a bishop or superintendent, such that is serves as the highest "authority" in the school. It hires the headmaster and decides if the headmaster's contract will be extended. It establishes tuition rates and salary increases, approves budgets, creates policies, and in rare circumstances, handles appeals of the headmaster’s decisions. 

A “Board of Limited (or Specialized) Jurisdiction”  (BLJ) is a model that might be seen in schools once founded by a religious order,  now sharing their authority with lay Boards. or in some diocesan high schools.. Typically, the religious order (or bishop, if a diocesan school)  delegates specific areas of authority to the lay Board within the broad parameters of diocesan or parish policies, while retaining authority in all other areas. A religious order could delegate to the Board the authority to create a budget and set tuitions, for example, but retain authority to hire the school president or to oversee any issues relating to the Catholic identity of the school. The bylaws or the constitution of the BLJ, signed by the religious order or bishop and the lay board, would make these distinctions explicit. 

An “Advisory Council” (AC) is the model for Prince of Peace, the schools within the Diocese of Dallas, and most other dioceses in the country. The Council recommends actions to the pastor or bishop, (in our case, the pastor) who has the authority to veto the recommendation. If the Council is doing its work well, the vast majority of the time, the pastor accepts the recommendations of the Council, so the practical impact of the Advisory Council’s work ends up similar to the other models. 

With AC’s, the evaluation, hiring and firing of a president are the responsibility of the pastor (in the case of a parish school) or the bishop/superintendent (in the case of a diocesan high school). Pastors (and superintendents) would typically ask for candid feedback from the Council as part of their evaluation. In the case of a president-principal model, the president evaluates, hires and removes the principal, and would consult the Council in similar fashion.  

In all three models, the purpose of the Board/Council is primarily to extend and promote the mission of the school in terms of strategic planning, policy making, and securing and protecting the financial resources of the school. Wheres a Board or Council recommends policies that are broad in nature, indicating a direction--the "what?" and the "why?"--the school administration's 's job is to operationalize these policies in the day to day life of the school-- the "who?" and the "how?" and usually, the "when?" 

The Board or Council, for example, might recommend the expansion of the school’s foreign language offerings, providing the means for doing so in its upcoming budget, whereas the principal would hire the additional language teacher and supervise that person.  If there is a dispute regarding the discretionary judgment of a president, properly functioning Boards or Councils will generally defer to the presidenl’s judgment, until such time as his or her discretion is no longer trusted, whereby a BOT would typically move to replace the president upon the completion of his or her contract, or members of a BLJ or AC would bring their concerns forward to the pastor or superintendent. 

The school president (or in the absence of a president, the principal) serves as the "executive secretary" for the Council.