Monday Moan: Gotta school board meeting tonight, Monday, Feb. 9

by Jeff Salisbury

My oh my but where has the time gone? Time for another school board meeting.

Wayland Union School Board of Education Regular Meeting

@ Baker Elementary School – Monday, February 9, 2015 – 7:00 p.m.

My grandsons have WHS basketball games at Holland Christian but I hope to make it to the board meeting as soon as possible.

Now, what can we expect?

1. APPROVAL OF PERSONNEL REPORT

Here we’ll probably all be introduced to the “new” director of transportation. I understand better than a dozen applicants was whittled down to four finalists – two internal – two external. After 3 in-person interviews and 1 telephone interview by a “recommendation committee” the job was offered to one of the internal candidates. Certainly there was a lack of transparency since the finalists went unannounced, publically anyway. The public will never know if the choice was the most highly qualified or not. Good questions for the public and board members to ask. On top of that the new director’s contract ought to be available for review by trustees and posted online for the public to review – wise to compare it to the two previous and most recent directors’ contracts as well.

1. APPROVAL OF BUSINESS and/or BUDGET REPORTS

Care to do the inspecting that a Board Treasurer would do? Go to the WUS main page and Choose from these:

• Budget Forecast – 2014/15 through 2016/17
• Casino Fund Use
• Personnel Expenditures
• Check Registers
• District Credit Card Information
• Purchase Card Activity
• Declining Balance Card Activity
• Current Operating Expenditures

Pick any one these that suits your fancy and look for anything that seems remiss.

1. PRESENTATIONS/REPORTS
2. Student Board Member – always interesting to hear what’s going on at WUHS
3. Departments
4. Maintenance – John Huyck – John is the district’s “working supervisor” – that is to say he works alongside the other three maintenance personnel completing a variety of projects, repairs and reconditioning assignments.
5. Building Principal – Celeste Diehm, Baker School
6. Standing Committees – these will include any BOE committees which met since the January meeting or will be meeting before the March meeting including 1. Finance & Operations; 2. Curriculum & Technology; 3. Athletics & Extra-Curriculars; 4. Personnel & Negotiations; and Policies
7. Superintendent

VII. STRATEGIC PLAN – look for a report by one or more committee co-chairpersons – these would include school employees and members of the public who served on sub-committees.

VIII. PUBLIC COMMENT – Agenda Items

1. NEW BUSINESS – Discussion Items
2. Strategic Plan Goals
3. OLD BUSINESS – Action Items – this portion of the meeting includes previously reviewed materials and discussion items known as “NEW BUSINESS” which now according to requests from the Superintendent have reached the need for a full-board Board vote. In recent meetings the “New Business” items have included:

From the January 12, 2015 regular meeting the board discussed:

1. Lawn Mowing Bids
2. Summer 2015 Projects
3. Strategic Plan Goals
4. WUEA Sick Bank Language
5. Superintendent Contract

Now the superintendent is asking for a vote on the following items.

1. Lawn Mowing Bids
2. Summer 2015 Projects

I must add I’m surprised that of all the items previously discussed that only two items are now being considered for “action”… interesting.

I am also surprised that since the recent Work Session has so many discussion items and none made it to either New Business or Old Business at this meeting. Here’s that list:

Wayland Union Schools Board of Education – Work Session

@ Administration Office – Monday, January 26, 2015 – 6:00 p.m.

1. 2015-16 Budget Assumptions
2. Budget Timeline
3. Buses
4. Summer 2015 Projects
5. iPad Proposal

It seems to me that these items ought to be up for discussion even if it’s only been a week or so later. Better to me while they are all fresh in trustees minds. Perhaps they’ve already been referred to committees – but that announcement needs to me made so the public can decide to attend the committee meetings –dates, times, locations.

1. BOARD TOPICS – this is the time when board members can bring up an subject they wish

XII. PUBLIC COMMENT – General (Non-Agenda Items)

A comment here – I notice earlier in the new agenda a minor format change. I think you will too if you’ve followed the past agendas. Notice the parentheses contains this (Non-Agenda Items) – I am curious why the change and why the Board President would limit public comment by topic. Inappropriate in my view to limit or restrict public comments to certain agenda categories.

XIII. ADJOURNMENT

Note – the next meeting is a work session – February 23, 2015 at the Administration Building, 850 E. Superior, Wayland (Start time 5:30 p.m. – which is 30 minutes early than most work sessions)

One final comment while I am noting the next scheduled board meeting – if you’re not aware by now the most recent meetings went improperly posted and it seems to me clearly violated the Michigan Open Meetings Act.

Board members (especially the new ones) as well as the public need to be aware of what the law requires school boards (all elected boards and councils actually) to do when it comes to posting and conducting meetings – making them open and accessible to the public.

Most all of this responsibility falls on School Board secretaries and School Superintendents to do things right and proper. Most recently that didn’t happen. The School Board Secretary and most especially the Superintendent have the knowledge and experience to not let these kinds of mistakes happen. Ever.