Board Meeting Tuesday 4-24-18

The regularly scheduled Board meeting was held on Tuesday, April 24th.  Students were honored to begin the meeting with representatives of Leadership 20/20 and the Full IB Candidates from Sumner Academy introduced individually to the Board.  It is always inspiring to see these young adults receive recognition for their hard work and accomplishments.

The Board again challenged staff on a couple of topics beginning with a series of questions to the HR representatives who were reporting back in response to previous inquiries.  Also, the previous request to have the Board receive a list of all purchases made at the Superintendent's direction under $20,000 was not adequate according to the Board Members.  The process is that the Superintendent is authorized to make these selections, probably in consultation with the Procurement staff, and then the Board approves each expenditure at regular Board meetings but obviously more information is needed by some.

J.D. Rios presented on behalf of the Community Visioning Team (CVT) in support of the recommended upgrades to two existing projects at West Middle School and Fiske Elementary. While the Board did eventually vote approval of the recommendations, the time spent with the CVT was challenged by one Board member inquiring as to why that same amount of time was not spent with the Board.  The Superintendent explained the procedure; the community is and has been involved in this process from the beginning so the professional staff sought their opinion prior to making the recommendation to the Board.  It is then the responsibility of the Board to ask questions and direct the work of the professional staff by approving or disapproving the recommendations.  

The video below is long, but at about the two hour and fifteen minute mark you can see the presentation of this particular issue.