Board President Audrey Souders opening statement addressed the current Board’s commitment to transparency. “Transparency builds trust” she said. I couldn’t agree more - I think I’ve said that myself a few times in the past 2 years! She went on to state that the Board reviewed the OPRA log and concluded that the most requested items were legal invoices, so the board decided to publish those going forward, together with a pie chart showing how the legal expenses are distributed.
While publishing legal invoices is great, the REAL transparency the public wants and deserves is public conversation about the important issues, instead of conversations behind closed doors and in serial phone meetings. I hope to see this year’s Board make an improvement in that level of transparency at its public meetings this year.
Superintendent Shauna DeMarco emphasized the theme of transparency and building trust in our district, and her commitment to building that trust going forward. She acknowledged that trust is not give on demand, but rather something that is earned. She reinforced the district’s desire to hear from the community and that the district values the opportunity to engage with the community.
Date change: The March 24 Board meeting has been moved to March 17, in order to acclimate the State budget adoption deadline.
Interim BA Dora Zeno noted that the IHHS Wellness Room renovations were completed under budget, and approximately $50K was returned to capital reserves. Ms. Zeno noted that the last feasibility study and master plan was done 7 years ago, in 2018, and that the $43,700 Building Surveys proposed to be done by LAN Associates was necessary to prioritize capital projects. I wish this had been done 2 years ago, before the capital project spending spree, but it is a good start to get a handle on the massive capital spending of the past two years and be more strategic going forward.
Finance committee chair Joe Valenti announced that the committee is committed to try to reduce legal fees. FINALLY, it appears the board has woken up to this issue! I have been hammering this message for quite a while now and I am glad it is finally getting the attention it deserves. Preliminary steps cited included Ms. De Marco restricting which staff members can access legal counsel (Based on Board Policy, I assumed that constraint was already in place, so good to have it looked at with a critical eye), as well as "policy review and some redactions will be handled internally.”
I am glad the Board is addressing the skyrocketing legal fees of the past two years, and that they are taking my recommendation to move some OPRA redactions back in house. I will continue to report on how they are doing in this area.
Policy chair Tom Bogdansky stated that there was “robust" discussion in committee about Policy 5516 Use of Electronic Devices (which was pulled from the agenda) and Policy 5701 Academic Integrity. I wish they would’ve given a little more information about what specific issues were discussed behind closed doors in committee, so the public might’ve had a window into what might be coming. Ramsey High School recently banned cell phones in their schools, and I wonder if the RIH BOE is considering a move in that direction? Watch for changes to these policies on future agendas.
Board Goals: there was a discussion about Board Goals. Board President Audrey Souders went around the table and gave each board member ample time to speak. It was one of the more transparent conversations this board has had in recent years. Each board member read off 3-5 goals they had submitted for consideration. Across the nine board members, the themes seemed to consistently reflect Education, Fiscal Responsibility, Communication and Enrollment Disparity.
After some discussion, it was determined to form an ad hoc committee led by John Kinney, to fine tune a set of goals to bring forward for board approval. As a reminder, Board goals are goals for the Board itself, and NOT goals for the district. The District goals, and the Superintendent goals, have already been set and approved by the Board. The Board goals should focus on specific actions the Board itself can take to set its direction and improve its function —such as committing to a public review of the district’s Strategic Plan by late spring to ensure that any new initiatives align with the community-driven goals already in place, establishing a regular public forum where board members answer community questions beyond just the public comment portion of meetings, implementing specific operational processes to ensure substantive responses to all community questions and emails, and formally committing to full compliance with OPMA rules to prevent improper executive session discussions and serial meetings occurring through phone calls and emails.
Given the board’s discussion on fiscal responsibility, it’s worth noting that check registers from board meetings show nearly $600,000 in payments to Di Cara/Rubino Architects and LAN Associates Inc. since April 2024. While proper facilities management is critical, the level of detail reported on the operations and facilities committee over the past two years—often diving into administrative-level decision-making—has raised public concerns about whether the board is overstepping its role. Rather than continuing down this path, perhaps a more appropriate Board Goal would be to ensure a clear separation between governance and operations, allowing district professionals to handle facilities work while the board focuses on oversight.
Watch for Board Goals to come back on the agenda, perhaps next meeting.
Listening to all the Board members state their commitment to address the Enrollment Disparity between Ramapo and Indian Hills as part of the Board Goals, I was struck by the fact that no one mentioned the district’s existing Strategic Plan. That plan, developed with significant staff and community input, already outlines a step-by-step plan for addressing the issue, yet it has been left sitting on the shelf since Dr. Dionisio left. Before the board starts “recreating the wheel,” it should first revisit and publicly discuss this plan as a foundation for any new efforts —perhaps even making this a formal Board goal for Spring or Summer.
Mr. Bogdansky asked the Interim Business Administrator for an update on the ESIP plan. The conversation may have left the public with the wrong impression (the Interim Business Administrator said in response to Mr. Bogdansky’s synopsis of the plan: 'I neither confirm nor deny'.) While it is true that savings from the ESIP investments have not yet been recognized by the district, the overall plan is still on track to provide significant long-term savings. It might be useful for the current or incoming Business Administrator to present an update on the ESIP periodically, complete with the transparency of full facts, rather than an ad hoc conversation.
A member of the public asked that the amount of legal fees related to OPRA requests and legal fees from "lawsuits" be made public, because he personally wants "to connect the dots”. He appeared to be conflating “lawsuits” and School Ethics Commission Complaints. He also attempted to place blame on the "Supporting our Students” campaign of current sitting board members. To my knowledge, none of the sitting Board members have anything to do with “lawsuits” or ethics complaints against the district or individual board members.
All motions on the agenda passed unanimously.