Below is my recap of the February 13 RIH BOE meeting, which was almost 6 hours long. This is my quick synopsis for those who were unable to attend, as always the full Livestream can be found on the district’s website.
A 6-hour meeting. Wow! What was accomplished in all that time? How did the Board work to set direction and goals to improve our schools and improve student achievement? Unfortunately, there was little progress to report on those fronts.
There was a shortened version of NJSBA Ethics Training and a presentation by the District’s CPA firm. The ethics training was cut down to 20 minutes from the hour long training received last year. The CPA firm reported that the district had a clean audit report, and district is in a strong financial position. Kudos to the Business Administrator Tom Lambe and his team for the clean report.
The 2023-2024 Calendar, which was on the agenda for a vote, was pulled from the agenda by the Superintendent for another review (it’s expected to be brought back for a vote in March).
A majority on the Board (Sullivan, Ansh, Emmolo, Bogdansky, Mariani) took several actions:
(1) Approved a new Board attorney (with a 5-4 vote) to replace the one they terminated (with a 5-4 vote) on January 5th. There was no cap on spending for the new attorney, as there had been for the previous one. The new Board attorney attended the full meeting at an approximate cost of $1,020 ($170 per hour*6 hours, not including 2 hours of his travel time).
(2) Approved a motion (5-4 vote) to change the locations of some Board meetings from the auditoriums to the cafeterias. These location changes will cost the district additional funds to purchase mobile audio-visual equipment ($6k-$10k) as well as the cost to set up and break down the cafeteria and the need for additional security costs as a result of moving the meetings further into our buildings and far away from the front entrances where the current auditorium meeting locations are directly adjacent to.
(3) Approved a motion (5-4 vote) to change the Board minutes of the January 5th Board meeting, per recommendations of Kim Ansh and over the objections of the Board Secretary. Kim Ansh's motion was passed around on a piece of paper and the public was not made aware of what the changes were. (I will follow up on what changes were made since it was not made available to the public at the meeting).
(4) Voted down all four HIB recommendations (5-4 vote) of the Superintendent. Year to date a majority on this Board has voted down 6 of 9 of the HIB recommendations made by the Superintendent. Link to video excerpts of the discussion of HIBs (Harassment, Intimidation & Bullying) investigations are here: https://youtu.be/QoZfQcOaTtk (updated link)
(5) Approved a new Policy 0164.1 (5-4 vote) that will allow Board members to attend Board Meetings (both Public and Executive Session) by Zoom. This policy was passed despite concerns raised by Ms. King and Mr. DeLaite. Mr DeLaite specifically stated needing to change his vote after he received a draft model policy from Legal Counsel at the NJ School Board Association that included specific recommendations that he felt the policy, on a second read, did not address. A motion to table the policy to return to committee for more work failed (4-5 vote). As I’ve previously mentioned, this new policy does NOT follow best practices.
Under the agenda section labeled for "Board Discussion", Board President Judy Sullivan stifled the discussion of issues between board members, when she repeatedly stated all comments from Board members be directed to her, instead of allowing an actual discussion to transpire between Board members. Every Board I have been on has encouraged Board members to talk to each other and DISCUSS AND DEBATE issues, not have a one-way communication with the Board President who then decides how the conversation will proceed. Sometimes Ms. Sullivan allowed people to respond to fellow board members and other times she answered questions herself that were directed to others. While doing so might be needed when there is a lack of decorum, this was not the case. In my opinion, this resulted in what would have been comic, but actually appeared as a tragic display of appeasing Ms. Sullivan's ego where she required all Board members to refer to her as Ms. Sullivan and not Judy.
Unfortunately there was really very little substantive discussion about the actual issues. Overall, in my opinion, the meeting was an unfortunate demonstration of government at work, and an embarrassing display for our District.