February 28, 2023 Board Meeting — My Thoughts
We held a regular board meeting on February 28th. You can view the meeting here (on YouTube). As always, I encourage you to watch the meeting if you can.
Career and Technical Education
We have had two presentations–one last meeting and one during this meeting–about the Career and Technical Education certification program. During both presentations, we primarily heard from former and current students who have participated in the program. As always, it’s great to get students’ perspectives. And the CTE program has had some huge success stories. I know a decent number of students who have thrived in this program. Indeed, one of the students who spoke to us is someone I have worked with for a long time and I have seen what a positive experience he has had. This is absolutely the sort of programming that provides students with real and substantive choices during high school.
FOIA
A few folks have reached out about the issue I raised at the outset of the public session. After we voted to go into executive session and after the Chairwoman listed the items that were included on our executive session agenda, the district’s acting attorney added an item that he described as a “contract issue.” This is not how we normally do things and so I requested that he explain to the public why it was okay to proceed with this item despite the fact that it was not on the agenda.
In short, our attorney explained that executive session items do not have to be listed on the agenda and can simply be called out after the board has voted to go into executive session. I have a two concerns with how we went about it. First, it is inconsistent with our normal practice. We–and frankly, most other school boards and councils–list our executive session items. I think that’s a good practice. I believe we should be consistent and err on the side of transparency. Second, I raised the issue of the relatively recent settlement agreement that requires, among other things, that “before going into Executive Session for legal advice, the Board will specify with particularity the subject matter of the legal advice sought.” I don’t think we did that.
Reasonable people can always disagree, but I worry that when we try to do the least that is required, we invite characterizations like the recent one from the Court of Appeals, which described us as “cavalier” regarding our obligations under FOIA.