The Wayland Board of Education will switch its regular meeting times from 7 to 6 p.m. on the second Monday of the month.
The move will commence with the Oct. 9 meeting.
The board already has 6 p.m. work sessions on the fourth Monday of the month and this earlier start will be advantageous to teachers and school personnel who have to get though a long day of classes and work.
Hopkins meets at 6 p.m. monthly and Martin meets at 6:30.
In other business Monday night, the board:
- Welcomed back senior Ava Makowski and newcomer junior Matthew Chubb as student representatives for this academic year (See cover photo).
- Was told by Dorr Elementary Principal Robin Seniura, host of the meeting, that Dorr in 2022-23 saw a reduction of behavior referrals by 51.6 percent and “We credit the CKH (Capturing Kids’ Hearts) program.
- Learned from Superintendent Tim Reeves that not only is the district’s population increasing over last year, “We’re still having students coming into the district in the fourth week of the academic year.”
- Was told that school board tours of other pool facilities is nearly done. Jackson still needs to be paid a visit, but board members have stopped in to tour others, including Hastings, Otsego, Kalamazoo College and Portage in preparation of constructing a new pool approved by the bond issue last May.
- Learned that bids for bond projects thus far have come in under preliminary estimates, so the savings will be used to upgrade electrical wiring in buildings.
- Acknowledged there were some busing hiccups in the first week of school, prompting Trustee Becky Honk to suggest “Maybe we should do something different
Other school districts have done the same time change.
Having attended dozens of 7:00PM school board meetings in multiple MI districts over 15 years, there were often meetings where no teachers were present. The district superintendent and treasurer were almost always attendance.
District purchasing personnel, heads of transportation, facility directors, athletic directors and teachers were only there when there was a scheduled agenda item that required their input or they wanted to address the board about a specific issue.
The 6:00 PM start time combined with limiting time for public comments/questions and sometimes requiring residents to submit topics up to 4 days before a meeting to get on the agenda is a convenient (and legal) way eliminate attendees and put meetings on the express lane.
When you agree to be a district superintendent or district treasurer, those once a month public meetings are part of job and until recently the meetings have always been at 7:00 PM.
If you live in the Wayland Union District but work in Allegan, Metro GR or Kalamazoo, and get out of work at 4:30 or 5:00 it’s difficult to get to a 6:00 PM meeting. Once you navigate 131 traffic there may not be time stop at home for a quick dinner or maybe change your clothes and be on time for the school board meeting.
I’ve been told there township boards, village and city councils who would like to have fewer attendees (and reporters) to get things done without any citizen oversight. It’s a lot tougher to roll back a policy once it’s been approved with little or no public input or opposition. It appears the school boards have taken note.
And so it goes.
WUS has an insecure insular board that fears the accountability of public discussion.
Having been to several Board of Education meetings, I think the 6:00 pm start time is reasonable. The teachers, students (the Board has two student representatives), parents and administrators can get out at a reasonable hour.
To address the comment about requiring people to submit public comments four days in advance, I am not sure where that is in reference to, but it is not a requirement of Wayland. I also believe it is a violation of the Open Meetings Act. Time to speak (especially multiple people on the same topic) can be limited. It is rare for people to be limited.
Having spoken during a public comment opportunity, I made sure I could fit what I needed to say within the time limit.
Having considered running for a board seat in the future, this seals the deal for me that it’s basically impossible for someone working a typical 8am-5pm job outside of the little Wayland bubble. I would literally have to race from work to even get there on time, forget stopping for a potty break or a snack.
Not everyone works from home or has a flexible schedule, some of us are still clock punchers.