Yesterday’s Scranton School Board meeting started (for Directors) at 6 PM and ended around 10:30.  They need chiropractors on staff, or at least some ergonomic chairs.  My back is shot.  I feel bad for the audience.

In terms of any kind of controversy… there was none.  The Board voted down an assessment appeal, and I’m glad we did.  Frankly, we lose a lot of money to assessments.  Fighting it is going to cost money, maybe more that we would’ve lost than if we laid down.  But we have to start fighting and showing people they can’t just individually reassess everything over and over and expect the district to simply accept declining tax revenue.  We can’t afford it.  Hopefully it’ll be the beginning of a trend toward slowing this down.

The biggest moments in the meeting for me came during a presentation on Special Education.  We pay out a FORTUNE in special education lawsuits.  The district loses a ton of money and we need to evaluate why and fix it.  With the new head of Special Education, we’re doing that.  It was a truly impressive presentation that highlights not just reactivity, but pro-activity– something that we rarely engage in, it seems.  If we can save big dollars there, we can mitigate the current budget crisis.

One issue for yesterday’s meeting was the length.  We always have long executive sessions (I’m going to ask that we just start earlier so that we don’t inconvenience those who attend Board meetings).  Having both a Work Session and Board Meeting was too much.  I actually thought all questions would be answered at the Work Session portion, so that the meeting itself would be smoother, but alas.

As my tenure gets longer, and I learn more, I feel more comfortable making assessments.  The reason a lot of the meetings are the length they are is because people don’t do their homework, don’t read e-mails, don’t read packets, ask questions they already know the answer to, or don’t understand what’s happening.  It’s more than slightly frustrating.

By way of example, our engineering firm described a process that was quite clear to me, but was evidently incomprehensible to others.  It sounded to me a lot like having a contractor do work.  For the firm, they do a report on issues, then move to a design phase, then bid out the work, then the successful bidder does the work.  It’s like hiring somebody to fix a leak.  Look at the issue (the report), propose a fix (design phase), fix it (bidder does work).  Why this was complicated is beyond me.  But that was twenty of our minutes down the drain.  One young and skilled student that we were going to honor for his work just left because the meeting was so long.  I feel terrible.  I probably should’ve just spoken up and clarified– my job as a teacher is to distill complex information and make it something people can digest (try teaching Titus Andronicus to juniors).  But the other issue at meetings is that everybody feels the need to speak.  Nine Board members, various administrators…

I don’t like to add to the cacophony.

Maybe it’s my method of problem-solving.  If I have questions, I try to ask the source (which usually involves e-mailing or calling Board members with more experience, or the Superintendent).  I don’t need to air it out in public.  For issues that speakers bring up at Board meetings, I try to get their numbers and talk to them directly (I did that about an issue with Lincoln-Jackson and the gentleman told me in the years he’s been speaking, no Board member ever called him, which makes no sense to me– we are public servants and we must be engaged with the people).

Anyway, I won’t have to worry about it come December!  A group of people with lots of local government contracts spent around $25,000 to make sure I didn’t win (don’t worry, the second they attempt to influence the Board, I’ll file an ethics complaint against any partaking party– not being on the Board will mean I no longer need to be cordial in order to form working relationships).

Or, to spin PAC election-buying more positively, they spent $25,000 for me to spend more time with my sons.  Thanks, guys!