Lucius Malfoy/Board of Governors

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 24464

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Alfredo Ramírez <bonds0097 at y...> wrote:
> All right, I'm American and have frankly no idea how British 
> Boarding schools work. In CoS, we learnt that Lucius was one of the
> twelve school governors. What are school governors? Is this a 
> paying position or like being part of the PTA? At the end of the 
> book, he was `sacked' from his position as Governor, which I 
> figured meant it was a job. If someone would be so kind as to clear 
> that up for me, I'd appreciate it.

I believe that the Board of Governors of a British "public" (meaning 
private) school is like the Board of Trustees of an American private 
college/university (at mine, they were called Board of Managers). 
The Board of Trustees meets a couple of days a year and votes on 
whether to fire the President of the College and who to hire as new 
President, and on Big Issues like whether the college should have 
an Affirmative Action program and should the College go co-ed. They 
might have to vote their approval of the Business Manager and/or 
Fund Raising Director chosen by the President and of high-dollar 
contracts for the College to buy supplies/equipment or to sell 
research results. The payment of IIRC $75 a meeting doesn't even 
cover the airfare to the meeting place, but being a Trustee is a 
huge honor, very useful for networking with important people, and an 
opportunity for taking bribes/extortion.