Re-cap of 12/13/2011 BOE Meeting

Re-cap of 12/13/2011 BOE Meeting at Schreiber 8pm

Gentlemen, and Ladies,
This is a bigger email list than before and I will work with different lists since some topics have become more sensitive.  I hope everyone who came to the meeting last night got a glimpse of how things are run.  It is what it is; it's not perfect.  It can be extremely frustrating and mind-numbing at the same time.   I hope you would admit It is reasonably transparent, though. 
  I also am happy for you since everyone was pretty much up to speed with most of the issues and you were able to get the most out of the meeting, even if that may not have been much.

I had flashbacks from my painful year of attending these meeting last year and concluded not only is it probably impossible to round up a crew of smart, interested, professionals like yourselves for every one of these meetings, it is also very inefficient.
I would propose we figure out at least one or two guys who would be willing to commit to one or two meetings and write up the basic detail for the rest of us.   Other guys in the group can rotate in or out.   I have decided that i will attend every meeting that i can, but i don't want to be responsible for/would like some help with the work.

  You saw also that the BOE meetings are also basically 2 one-sided conversations, where the community speaks, and then the board speaks but it is not a forum where conversations actually take place.  Community questions don't necessarily get answered on the spot (or sometimes ever.)  The board i think feels that wide open conversations with the public is unmanageable for a meeting of that size.  That being said the board as representatives of the public wants to answer every question reasonably possible from all stakeholders, so Karen Sloan said she would try to come up with a way to answer publicly asked questions.
  Darren K. mentioned that a public question made by one person really should have a public answer since others in the community might have asked the same question but did not since it was already asked.  So instead of personal email responses to individual questions, a web based reply that the public could tune into will be looked into.
Any thoughts on how to execute this are welcomed.

Anyway it is too easy to get bogged down in stuff like this so here's the meat.
- Some people spoke against  a budget that goes over the over 2% property tax cap.
- Some spoke for clarity and transparency and better estimates on how much it costs to fix Weber roof.
- Some spoke to eliminating defined benefit plans as the major issue, over time, and ideally in a mutually agreeable way.
- Some advocated teacher association voluntary givebacks to save programs that will be cut.
I was pleasantly surprised that others outside our group were happy to see us talk, and agreed with our thoughts on high taxes and some of the other issues we brought up.  And one important note was that NO ONE publicly spoke in disagreement to anything we said.

Please note future meetings will be heart-wrenching as community members and teachers/librarians/guidance counselors/coaches beg for their individual programs and or jobs not to be cut.  Look at half-day kindergarten, reduction is sports teams/clubs/coaches/

moderators, reduction in PEP services....i only mentioned these because they were on the table last year, or they have been specifically mentioned this year, of course keeping in mind that all thinks are always on the table.
   In the end things will get cut.  Or you will pay higher taxes.  Or teachers will give back a little.   Or the administration will cut waste, overhead, or something we can live without. It is a zero sum game and like they said it doesn't look like a bag of money is showing up on the school steps any time soon.

Keep in mind this is only the board level and there is a limited amount that can be accomplished here.  You may be able to keep your taxes a little lower, get a giveback from the teachers and maybe save a program or two.   Also there are medium term advantages to speaking your mind at board meetings that we can calk about.  However, the more challenging changes will occur at a higher state level, and my next email, after the one about the roof, will be excellent regarding the state level next steps.

Take care and talk soon.

still working on the blog, make a comment....especially if you disagree.

http://pwschools.blogspot.com/

Link to 12/13/2011 agenda:
http://www.portnet.k12.ny.us/cms/lib6/NY01001023/Centricity/ModuleInstance/2077/a1112-121311p.pdf