Policy Committee Meeting 9/20/23

I sat through two-thirds of the policy committee's meeting on Wednesday, and here's what I took away.

They had asked the school's law firm to send an attorney to answer questions. The man was polite and helpful, despite long, circular discussions that went on and on. He told the board some things that should clear up controversies that should never have happened.

*They cannot go into classrooms and look at teachers' grade books. That information is available in other places, so they don't even need to.

*They cannot wander the school halls looking for violations of the handbook. They should not consider themselves one-person investigators of any situation.

*They should not take parent/citizen complaints that have not already been made to involved staff. Chain of command is important and works efficiently in most cases.

*They can name a school board member to hiring committees. I'm thinking that question came in reaction to the football coaching job.

*They can ask for reports on the final resolution of a complaint, though it is the job of the administration to actually deal with situations that arise. Some details may be confidential.

*They can question budget items. He did say that is usually done by the board treasurer during monthly reconciliation meetings with the financial manager. My take on this: It would save a ton of time at board meetings if the other members trusted Mr. Palmer to ask their questions rather than making the whole board sit through long lists of "I don't understand this budget item" questions.

*He spoke about trusting our staff and building trust between them and the board.

That was all good, and I might almost say that the substantial amount of money it cost to get the attorney up here outside normal attorney hours was well-spent, except I don't think he was really heard. At different points, both Chaskey and Kowalski claimed if what he was telling them was correct, then there's no sense in having policies at all. At other times, they jumped on some small bit of what he said and took it as proof they've been right all along.

The attorney reminded them that we operate under the US constitution, so other people have rights too.

Comments

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