The Board Agenda: are you welcome?

It is an embarrassment to me to sit on a board with this agenda format, but it is tough to fix things if we don’t talk about them, so here goes.

If you look at a School Board agenda, the title ‘Agenda’ appears in the middle of the page.  after the Call to Order, Pledge of Allegiance, Approval of the Minutes, Reports from Staff and Report from Board President.

You might wonder why the title appears in the middle of the page.

This is my general recollection.  You need to talk to other board members to hear their views.  (Three incumbents running for re-election:  Susan Boyd, Joel Peterson, Scott Tracy; not running now, Jeanne Broberg)

Once in a while, community members attend Board meetings to talk with the board and interact with staff regarding various programs and topics.  By the way, people don’t show up very often to discuss agenda items.

Over the years, parents have offered comments, research and suggested improvements on

• the Gifted and Talented program (GATE)
• the new High School schedule, including the re-arrangement of instructional minutes and enrichment/intervention offerings (STEP schedule)
• designs for remodeling projects, building projects, and the related construction process
• food services, aka cafeterias
• (you get the idea)

This may seem like a long list, but community members with comments are fairly rare.

In summary:
In 2008, under the leadership of then President Susan Boyd, Boyd and three other members of the Board agreed to streamline meetings by delaying community input until the Opportunity for the Public to Address the Board concerning items not on the agenda. (September 30, 2008 meeting, agenda item 1g)

Wait, these reports are on the agenda, right?
Yes, and then again, no.  They now appear before the word ‘Agenda’.  As you recall, ‘Agenda’ appears in the middle of the page, so the Reports are on the ‘not agenda’ part of the agenda.

The Call to Order, Report out of Closed Session, Pledge, and Approval of Minutes are also in this no-man’s land.

By the way, I requested staff have this reviewed by an attorney.  The attorney agreed this agenda format is OK.

One clarifying change was made:
the Opportunity for the Public to Address the Board concerning items not on the agenda has a new title. It is now called Opportunity for the Public to Address the Board concerning items not under Proposed Action and Discussion Items.

Under this new system, let’s say a program coordinator gives a report on the Gifted and Talented program, and there are parents in the room who want to participate in the discussion.  These parents can’t participate until Opportunity to address the board. In the meantime, the staff member gives the report and goes home.  The Board continues to hear reports, maybe a 15 minute update on construction followed by a 30 minute report on standardized tests scores.  Finally, we get to the Opportunity to Address the Board section of the meeting.

Are the parents still in the room?  If yes, they can take three minutes to ask their questions, offer observations and make comments, but the relevant staff member is probably long gone.  Any power point presentation has been shut down, making it almost impossible to refer back to specific slides.  At this point, Board members can acknowledge the input from the parent and that’s about it.  We can’t interact because these comments are on a topic that is not on the ‘Agenda’.

It gets worse, stay with me.
Under this current agenda format, a seated board member can not interact with the staff member during the presentation to any major extent because this item is not on the regular agenda.  (Quick clarifying questions are ok.)

Board members also can not interact with each other to discuss, arrive at conclusions, or give staff direction.  We gave that up for efficiency.  If we want to have a full-up discussion, we have to get the topic re-agendized for a future date as a workshop or as an action item.  That is not always easy or timely.

And for the parents that want to be part of the discussion?
They have to re-arrange their schedules to come back at a different time and date.

Is this efficient?

In my opinion, No!  The staff member was standing there, prepared to answer questions, but the Board and community could not interact.

This agenda modification is not staff’s problem.
With four board members in agreement, the Board did this to itself.

Did I mention I was embarrassed?

The agenda-planning people, including the board president and one rotating board member, are supposed to anticipate board/community interest and move a topic to the action items if they think people will want a discussion.  Those participating in agenda-planning are making an honest attempt to implement according to these guidelines, but no one has ESP.

Why are we putting ourselves through this?  Hard to say.

Yes, sometimes parents come to criticize a program or staff performance.  Yes, it can be uncomfortable.  This is the nature of a school board meeting and the open meeting format.  We are the trustees of a significant public resource and the public has every right to comment.

In many cases, when people have made the effort, we have learned a great deal from our knowledgeable community members.  No surprise there!

We don’t have to agree with everyone, but we need to be more respectful of their time and more courteous, even welcoming, of their comments.

I personally think this agenda format is an insult to an educated, supportive and involved community.

You might wonder if I have been working diligently to fix this agenda.  The answer is no.  While I would like to restore the agenda to a traditional format, I can’t take on everything.

For now, I am trying to stay focused on some of the important issues, like:

• authentic staff evaluation and improvement in instructional quality
• construction schedules and budgets
• the challenging District budget issues

Still, if you care about the agenda and the public’s ability to address the board and staff in a timely, relevant and interactive way, please let board members know.  I will happily support a change back to the traditional format.

Most importantly, we all need to remember, we are the elected public servants and, ultimately,  you own the microphones.