ISB Annual Report 2021-2022

BOARD OF TRUSTEES It gives me great pleasure to reflect on this school year and the work we have done as a Board. I have now been on the ISB Board for four years and have seen our school go from strength to strength. It is satisfying to note the school now having a strong financial base enabling it to look towards the future with confidence.

A great accomplishment of a Board is to ensure that they hire a strong leader to support the leadership team. During my time on the Board we have hired Viki Stiebert and extended the Leadership Team. I want to commend them as a group on the thoughtful and intentional way they have steered our school through at times turbulent waters with a pandemic to contend with, as well as serving the mission exceptionally well. Their strength has ensured that the Board has been able to focus strategically on moving ISB forward.

Boards have three main goals: • To ensure the long term strategic wellbeing of a school • To work with the Director on quality control of the programme the students are provided with in form of policies • To look after the financial wellbeing of the school The Board set goals in line with these expectations, this year’s goals were: 1. Further increasing financial reserves and investigating additional income sources 2. Maximising the roll and forming waiting lists 3. Re-establishing the connection with Bergen Kommune 4. To actively recruit new Board members 5. Developing a new Strategic Plan for ISB Policy development is an ongoing task for a school Board. This year we approved the new data protection policy, which has been particularly dear to my heart. It will assure that we keep our families’ information safe. Related to this, information at ISB has become much more accessible in the past year with the introduction of both a staff and even more recently a parent portal.

The Kommune provides the school with superb facilities in exchange for the school ensuring that there are spaces for families who are internationally mobile. Therefore, we have been working on having a more active connection with Bergen Kommune, this is an especially important relationship for ISB. On behalf of the Board, the Director meets regularly with the Kommune to ensure that both parties’ needs are met.

This important relationship has served ISB well and I am glad to have been a witness over my time on the Board to have seen how our students have reaped the benefits in the form of a quality international education being available to our students.

Looking forward, we have begun to develop a new Strategic Plan for ISB. We want to set clear and specific long-term goals for the future of the school. I believe that the school is now in a really good place and that we are continuously working on fulfilling our mission of contributing to a more tolerant, peaceful and globally responsible society.

I leave with a feeling of great satisfaction for what has been achieved during my time on the Board and am looking forward to ISBs achievements in the future as this school keeps progressing. Because once an ISB Orca, I will always remain so.

Agnethe Lødøen, Chair of the ISB Board of Trustees 7