Special School Board Meeting of April 3, 2012

The podcast of this 8-minute meeting can be found at http://cmsbears.podbean.com or on iTunes.

Basically, back on March 21 the board said that they would be conducting their interviews in public, while the "advisory" committees would conduct their interviews in closed sessions.

Now, the board has discovered that they are not required to conduct their interviews in public, therefore they will not conduct their interviews in public. According to board president Bill Denney “In my opinion we are going to have closed interviews. I think it would be better for the candidates and for the school board. We can ask better questions. Unless I’m getting voted down here, I think it’s the best all around."


But there was no vote, and it did not appear that anyone on the board was questioning this decision. This meeting was simply to inform the public that the April 7 meeting will be an Executive Session.


So those of you who are not on the hand-picked advisory boards will not have an opportunity to hear what questions the board thinks are important, or hear what the candidates have to say in response to those questions. Everything will be conducted behind closed doors and you will find out who they have selected either on the 7th, or the 11th or the 24th of this month.

Clarification on Upcoming Special Board Meetings and Workshops

As I stated in the post about the special meeting to be held March 14, 2012 at 4 p.m., I wanted some clarification as to what the executive session was for. I emailed board president Bill Denney and CC'd all of the board members (my email is at the tail end of this). Arlan Ponder must have forwarded my questions to Dr. Patterson, who is the consultant the board hired to help with the superintendent search. Arlan has given me permission to post our email correspondence, along with Dr. Patterson's reply. Here it is...

Margo,

Following is a part of an email I receive from Dr. Patterson when I asked about the executive session. 

Since he has been doing this a while I would think he understands the Open Meetings Act better than most and would do everything to ensure it was done properly and in accordance with the law.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Arlan

1.  The training of the Board and committees, as well as the work of the committees and board in developing questions for the interviews will be "work sessions."  Work sessions are open to the public so anyone who wants to spend 2 to 4 hours listening to the discussion are welcome to attend, although they will not be able to participate.

2. The part being conducted under executive session is for the screening process in which only the board members and those they invite are welcome to attend.  Without quoting all the law which is many pages long, The Open Meetings Act, NMSA 1978, Chapter 10, Article 15 lists the many reasons a meeting for the Board to be conducted in public.  10-15-1.H lists meetings in which the public meeting is not required. Paragraph (3) of that section states: Limited personnel matters; provided that for purposes of the Open Meetings Act, 'limited personnel matters' means the discussion of hiring, promotion, demotion, dismissal, assignment or resigantion of or the investigation or consideration of complaints or charges against any individual employee......."

An example of this is given further on in the Compliance Guide in example #42:  "A school board meets to consider applicants for the position of superintendent.  Discussion of the applicant's qualifications is conducted in closed session, but the final decision or vote of the board with respect to hiring one of the applicants as superintendent must be taken in public session."

A commentary on that example included in the Compliance Guide also states:   It may appear that to require final actions to be taken in open session is a meaningless formality since the actual deliberations may be closed.  This requirement, however, serves the purpose of ensuring that all final actions on personnel matters are announced publicly and the position of each member on the issue is recorded in the official minutes."

Selecting finalists to be interviewed would fall under the same standards as the actual hiring discussion because the qualifications and in many cases confidential information regarding those candidates will be discussed.

As for the actual interviews on April 7, again, those are "work sessions" which are open to the public should they desire to spend 8 hours observing the process.  Although they may "observe," they may not participate or interfere. The discussion by the board for the actual selection will again be an executive session with the actual open session and voting on the candidate being held on April 24.

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 8, 2012, at 9:23 PM, Margo Whitt <sendmargomail@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Bill,

The agenda for the special board meeting notes an executive session to discuss "limited personnel matters screening of superintendent candidates."

I have posted some information to my blog, www.cmsbears.net, which deals with the subject of screening of superintendent candidates.

My understanding of the open meetings act is that executive session is only warranted if discussing a specific applicant and that applicant's qualifications. At the last meeting, it didn't sound like there were any specific applicants yet. 

Can you give me some more details as to what you are going into executive session for?

Thank you

Margo

Summary of Special School Board Meeting of March 22, 2010

A complete podcast of the meeting can be found at http://cmsbears.podbean.com/ (podcasting is a new thing for me, so please leave me input if you have any problems with it!)

Being a "special meeting," business was conducted a bit differently. Board president Terry Butram read a statement, which can be found here. The statement/script of the meeting refers to the following documents:

Section II Open Meetings Act
V. Section 10-15-3 Invalid Actions; Standing
Local School Board Vacancies

To summarize the whole thing, the Board (through the script) acknowledged that they should not have discussed the board appointment/applicants in an executive session. They summarized what took place in the executive sessions and re-voted to appoint Ed Woten to the school board.

The Alamogordo Daily News covered the meeting in this article.

Overview of March School Board Meeting

It was an active School Board meeting last night, with around 20 citizens attending. Several folks signed up to make public comments.
1. One man spoke against the idea of a 4-day week. The Superintendent said that it was being considered as a last resort should they need it for budgetary concerns or should the citizens/teachers decide that they wanted to add staff with the savings from going to a 4-day week. Mr. Hancock suggested that people email him (thancock@cmsbears.org) with their thoughts about the 4-day week.
2. Another man asked about the school's priorities. He said that when the board was asked about its priorities that the students were never mentioned in the response. He referenced programs like "Character Counts" in the elementary school and asked what was being done along those lines in the Middle and High School. Mr. Hancock suggested that he get with the school's principals and they could fill him in on the various programs at the Middle and High School.
3. Dulaney Barrett handed out this letter pointing out that the executive sessions which were held to appoint both D'dre Brock and Ed Woten to the school board were in violation of the open meetings act. (see blog post "Open Meetings Act" posted on February 5th). Mr. Hancock suggested that the school board consult an attorney, which they voted to do. Mr. Hancock also commented that "this could cause the school to have to consider a 4-day week if they have to pay an attorney to fight it."
4. A woman asked whether any follow-up action had been taken with regards to a staff member using tobacco products on school grounds. Mr. Hancock informed her that there were specific procedures for filing complaints and that they needed to be specific with names and dates before any action could be taken. He said that there is a complaint form that needs to be filed with the person's supervisor. (Here is a copy of the complaint form.) Then if the matter is not resolved, they can come to the superintendent, and if the matter is still not resolved they can come to the school board. He stressed that they need to go to that person's immediate supervisor so that person has the details, otherwise the board and superintendent are not going to spend time trying to figure out who/what they are talking about. The woman said that they had gone through channels, that the channels didn't work, and that when they complained their children were harassed.

After the public comments, the Action items included:
1. Changing the next board meeting date to April 5th due to Spring break.
2. The "first reading" of Policy Advisory No. 69 (GBEB) which deals with "self conduct" and No. 70 (JFC) which deals with student withdrawals. I asked that copies of these proposed changes be provided for the public, but they were not. (see "Making Policy Advisory Changes available to the Public")
3. The board approved a waiver for a senior who just moved here from another state so did not have New Mexico history.

In the Information Items, Assistant Superintendent Amy Lane gave a summary of the various testing that is required by the Feds and the State. Apparently New Mexico's Public Education Department (PED) has received numerous complaints from schools that the unfunded testing mandates were becoming a financial burden with the ongoing budget cuts. The result of this is that some testing can be eliminated next year, saving the school approximately $3,200.

Mr. Hancock said that, if the Governor signs the budget bill, we would be looking at another 1.8% budget decrease, on top of the 2% decrease from the Fall. He said this would amount to about a $150,000 cut. He noted that we had already cut about $110,000 through "personnel." He also brought up the 4-day week and said the biggest issue with the public is babysitting on the fifth day.

It was also announced that the school had hired a nurse.

As acting school board president Jackie Cates was about to close the meeting (Terry Buttram was absent from the meeting), John Braziel, spokesman for the "Concerned Citizens" objected, saying that he was told that the board would read and respond to the questions that he had supplied earlier (see February 25th blog posting "More Questions for School Board from Concerned Citizens"). Board Secretary Doug Porch said they had decided before the meeting not to read the questions. I had some trouble following the timeline of who promised what to whom, but the bottom line sounded like the "Concerned Citizens" thought their questions were going to be addressed by the board and the board did not do that. Mr. Braziel also said that the issues had been taken through the chain of command and the result was the kids were being harassed and intimidated when the parents made a complaint.

Superintendent's Contract Extended

Last night's school board meeting ended with the school board going into executive session to discuss the Superintendent's evaluation. They then called the superintendent into the executive session to discuss his evaluations with him. When they came out of the meeting, the board voted unanimously to extend the superintendent's contract another year, which now gives him 2 1/2 years remaining on the contract. There was no public discussion on the matter, which leads me to conclude that the discussion took place in the executive session. I have sent the following email to each school board member:

"I'm interested in knowing the content of the board's discussion with regards to extending the superintendent's contract for a year. From the agenda, I assumed that the contract discussion would be public, but it appears that the issue was decided in the executive session. Can you explain what went on and why the contract was extended when there was already 1 1/2 years left on the existing contract?"


I anxiously await any reply...

Other School Board Action Items

There were no visitors speaking at tonight's meeting.

As to action items:
1. First reading of policy advisories 67-GCCB and 68-GCCD
Since these weren't read to the public, I don't know what they said. No copies were available at the meeting other than those that the board received. The discussion seemed to indicate that these were the result of new laws and dealt with military leave, domestic abuse leave and subpoena leave. No motion was made regarding this action item.
2. Approve application for 100 KW PV Solar Energy Grant
Board member Doug Porch asked Mike Richline (Transportation Director and author of the grant application) where the solar panels would go and was told that they would be mounted on poles in the niches on the front of the High School. Since the high school roof is more than 5 years old, the grant will not allow the panels to be roof-mounted. Mike said the solar panels would be protected with some kind of fencing. He said there would be a total of 30-40 mounted tracking poles with 12-16 panels per pole. (By my estimation, this is approximately 7,800 sq. feet of solar panels.) Based upon current electricity rates, the school estimates that these panels would save the school $26,000-$36,000 per year. There was also some discussion as to whether or not additional insurance would be required to cover these panels and whether or not the grant would provide for the cost of this insurance. These questions remain outstanding. The board voted unanimously to approve the application for the grant.
3. Donations
The FFA received a $2500 donation from the South Central Mountain RCD Council to help fund supplies. Mr. Booky gave a presentation to the board showing some of the artwork that his students have been doing in their efforts to raise money to fund the supplies for the agriculture, welding and shop classes. He spoke of many projects that his students are doing, including making "no hunting" and "no trespassing" signs out of the skins of old hot water heaters, to signs for the fire department, to rustic benches from the old Solano trestle. I didn't get all of the names of all of the people who have offered to help, but suffice to say that Mr. Booky is actively soliciting help for his programs! The board voted to accept the donation.
4. Executive Session, Appointment of New Board Member, Swearing in of New Board Member
See separate post below.

Ed Woten is our Newest School Board Member

Among other business at tonight's school board meeting, the board met in executive session to discuss the three applicants who submitted letters of intent for the open school board position. Those applicants were Ed Woten, Dulaney Barrett and Rick Rogers. Both Ed and Dulaney were at the meeting. Rick Rogers was not present (this is the Rick Rogers who substitutes at the school, not the Rick Rogers who owns the automotive repair, or the one who lives in High Rolls.)

I asked if copies of the letters of intent would be available to the public, but was told that they would not be. Apparently these letters were what the board based its decision on, as there was no public Q&A session.  I have asked both Ed and Dulaney if they would give me their letters and both said they would. I'll post them as soon as I get them.

Prior to going into executive session, board president Terry Buttram asked if any of the board members minded if Mr. Hancock sat in on the executive session. Board member Bill Denney asked if that was legal and Mr. Buttram said that it was. He also noted that Mr. Hancock was not there for "input." None of the board members objected so Mr. Hancock was included in the executive session.

When the public meeting reconvened, the board voted unanimously that Ed Woten replace the outgoing D'dre Brock.