BURKEonBOARD

(Oct. 12, 2008) – The school board tactic of meeting to discuss important issues at inopportune times when few can attend continues tomorrow (Monday, Oct. 13) afternoon at 5 p.m.

This is what the board calls “work sessions” when they discuss topics that they will likely vote on two weeks later at the board’s monthly business meeting when they typically take official votes and don’t discuss the details of what they discussed two weeks earlier.

The problem is, the “work sessions” are at a bad time for working folks and families trying to fix dinner and attend their kids’ events. That’s made worse because the board has ordered that these meetings not be carried on cable TV. It’s a recipe for keeping the public in the dark.

Board member Ann Manthey asked this policy be changed so that we might at least watch what our school board is considering, but the other five board members ignored her.

Monday afternoon’s meeting is important because several big issues are on the agenda. As they  appear on the agenda, they are:

1. New High School Change Orders
2. Artificial Turf Specifications
3. Attendance Boundary Process Update
4. Review of District Improvement Plans/AYP
5. Other Post-Retirement Employee Benefit (OPEB) Options
6. Board Member Vacancy Process

Each of these is important for a variety of reasons.

1. New High School Change Orders – The board will consider more than $135,000 in change orders for the new high school. Not a big deal if these weren’t a monthly occurrence at figures this great or greater. You won’t hear many details of this discussion at the official board meeting (which is on TV) if past is prologue.

2. Artificial Turf Specifications – The board is getting ready to start spending that $750,00 they approved for the artificial turf in the new high school’s grand new Tiger Stadium. At this point, they could still do the right thing and go back to the original plan for a grass field, but they don’t want to.

3. Attendance Boundary Process Update -This is a loser issue for any board member because no matter what boundaries they settle on, a bunch of people are going to be upset they fell on one side of a line or another. Still, it would be nice if we could all hear the report same as the board.

4. Review of District Improvement Plans/AYP – Districts with schools that failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law (Farmington had four such schools this year) have to file plans with the state to say how they will remedy that situation. This is the district’s game plan for getting out of the state’s NCLB dog house. It’s 77 pages of gobbledygook that only a bureaucrat could love and absolutely irrelevant to teaching. The state’s fault, not the district’s. I’d like to know how much time, energy and money went into this plan that might otherwise have gone into the classrooms.

5. Other Post-Retirement Employee Benefit (OPEB) Options – This one could cost you money. The board will get more information and, hopefully, ask some relevant questions about staff recommendations to sell $12 million in bonds to make retiree health insurance premium payments going out 30 years, and to raise taxes you’ll start paying next year to pay off those bonds. (Read more about this subject here.)

6. Board Member Vacancy Process - This one is kind of fun, grist for the conspiracy theorists and the one that just has politics written all over it. Board member Terry Donnelly is running for the city council. If he wins, he’ll have to resign. State law says the board has to fill that vacancy by appointment but it doesn’t say how or when. That allows for a lot of gamesmanship. To make this all on the up and up, the board should decide before the election the method they plan to use to fill the vacancy and when they plan to do that. They could decide to take the fourth place candidate in the upcoming board election or they could decide to pick someone else, perhaps from applicants the remaining board would choose among. That’s a method the board has used int he past. Either way, they should decide before the election.

So, that’s what’s on tap Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. Too bad you won’t have a clue what happened unless you attend the meeting yourself. Let the kids fix their own dinner.