St. Benedict is guided by an Advisory Council, which recommends actions to the principal, pastor or bishop, whereas the pastor or bishop (or his delegate, the superintendent) is the authority who approves. If the Council is doing its work well, the vast majority of the time, the church’s leadership accepts the recommendations of the Council, so the practical impact of the Advisory Council’s work ends up similar to the other models. 

The purpose of the 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. Whereas a Council recommends policies that are broad in nature, indicating a direction–the “what?” and “why?”—the principal’s job is to operationalize these policies in the day to day life of the school, the “who?” the “how?” and often, the “when?” The Council, for example, might recommend the expansion of the school’s foreign language offerings, providing the means for doing so in its upcoming budget, while the principal would hire the additional language teacher and supervise that person.  If there is a dispute regarding the discretionary judgment of a principal, properly functioning Boards or Councils will generally defer to the principal’s judgment, until such time as his or her discretion is no longer trusted, whereby a BOT would typically move to replace the principal 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.