Should a superintendent be given a set of goals and left to achieve them by any means he sees fit? That’s the question posed by the North Kitsap School District, as its school board considers changing their way of setting policy.

The board is considering moving toward the John Carver method of rule setting — a method popularized in the business sector in which chief executive officers answer to stockholders. In this case, it would be the superintendent who answers to the stakeholders — the parents and children in NK schools. Technically, he’s also held accountable by the school board.

This is where it gets tricky.

The school board currently operates under the “one board, one voice,” meaning that on all matters, the president speaks on behalf of the entire board. The board members are allowed to speak as individual members of the board, but only the president can say “The board is for/against (insert topic here).”

The John Carver method is meant to get the school board out of the day-to-day operations of the schools and get them to focus on broader issues. That’s well and good.

The board also would give the superintendent guidelines to make his decisions. That’s fine, too.

It just seems the Carver method grants too much leeway to one person to set policies for the school district. And, it should be noted that our neighbors to the south, the Central Kitsap School District, recently voted down the same idea.

As North Kitsap resident Marcy Salo wrote in an email: “Anything not strictly defined by the board is open to interpretation by the superintendent.”

We agree with her.

North Kitsap just isn’t ready for the Carver method.