A Confluence of Public Events (Part II)

As promised, I've cleared a few hours out of my ultimately lovely afternoon (I hope everyone is enjoying theirs as well) to update regarding recent community meetings I've attended. And yes, there are notes!



the School Board Meeting:

I'd arrived a few minutes shy of the school board beginning its proceedings, and sat with other friends and neighbors directly in the front. There were a few comments made from various members of the board about the microphones, they seemed unaccustomed to their use and noted "never having to use them before [today]" They seemed to imply the public interest in the issues on the docket was both notable and out of the ordinary, and seemed to be slightly off put by
the presence of so many. (The turn out seemed to quite justify use of the Auditorium at the high school, as there had to have been a 50-70 persons there of the community. Cheers for the investment, folks)

The following is from my hastily jotted observations:

• This having been my first EAHS board meeting I was quick to note how...procedural, the entire process was. Here we had somewhat terse persons speaking dryly into a microphone, in their best monotone. And I'm aware much of bureacracy is rooted in this sort of rigid procedure, it was just striking how much of the meeting was bogged down in this capacity.
• The first order of business was a presentation by the Director of Administrative Services of the York County School District, who seemed to have been hired in an evaluative capacity (or representing http://asbointl.org/index.asp A.S.B.O- or the Assoc. of School Business Officials ). The Director spent quite a bit of time(after introducing himself and getting the name of the town he'd come to wrong) illuminating a rather exhaustive study titled "Facilities Staffing Review" some objectives of which were to a.) review staffing levels and b.) supervisory levels for custodial staff and similar personnel. On the whole, the Director noted that he was largely impressed with the size and scope of Easton's custodial operation. You'll be happy to note that among the data he was unloading, it was found that Easton spends "less than average per square foot than comparatively sized school districts" ( roughly 10 cents, ). Has a combined staff =15,000 persons per square foot (this method I found puzzling because of its odd comparative measure, and I was almost curious enough to ask about how one goes about coming to this number). He also noted that EAHS has an "unusual number of day custodians @ the middle school" , and recommended that school custodians could benefit by having "identifiable uniforms for staff purposes". He recommended that the board fix the custodial budget at or around 1%, and made note of a large volume of overtime, specifically allocated for substitute custodial staff.
• Ms. Fisher, the President of the school board maneuvered the various items on the board's agenda with a noted imperial and decidedly...icy tone. The very presence of so many citizens with matters to address seemed unpalatable, and the overall attitude of the board seemed unresponsive to the interests of the citizenry assembled.
• When the meeting was opened for public comment, each were allowed a very brief 2 minutes to address a grievance, which was timed on a stopwatch on one of the computer monitor displays. I kept thinking those on the board seemed more interested in the stopwatch time than they did the actual speakers- the majority of whom offered a broad am mount of insight on both the tax increase issue and several others.
• As expected the bulk of the conversation revolved around the tax increase, with some people (perhaps sagely) asking about accountability/ transparency from the School Board involving earlier mismanagement. Others trying to get the board to consider a spending freeze or cap.
• One compelling counter argument came from a local elementary school teacher who felt compelled to add some nuance to the finger pointing (between the teacher's union, the taxpayers, and the school board) . She wanted it on the record that she felt that the school board was "not proactive enough about the budget previously", and felt that budget cuts would only serve to "impact overall morale" for what she suggested were already very put upon teachers. She insisted that the students at the end of the day would be the ones losing out should these sort of alleged cuts go through.
• A high school student (and there were quite a few present for the meeting, commendably) seemed concerned about the possibility of "angling to force the teachers out" and was concerned about the possibility of the suggested spending freezes would not "punish the students."
• Another student presented a compelling argument against an apparent ban on musical instruments on school busses that cost students the ability to practice and prepare for their futures. He also emplored the board not to deny funding to local winners of a prestegious confrence invitation (called the 8D?) that some members of the band were talented enough to recieve.
• Other discussion was brought to the panel regarding the disparity between male sports (predominantly EAHS's football and wrestling programs) and female sports and the Arts, which have seen cuts and are not considered equally. One speaker confronted the board voicing concern over the gender disparity and accounts she'd heard about decidedly apathetic councilors and teachers. She spoke of interest in encouraging the clearly involved and engaging teachers like the one who'd spoke previously and vetting those who aren't suitably engaging in their work. The dialouge about sports funding drew direct, and almost immediate and acidic rebuttal from one member of the board. It seemed unfair in that the speaker in question was allowed 2 minutes to voice a concern, did so without personal attack, and yet was not allowed to clarify her position after the boardmember called her to the proverbial carpet. I thought it was in particularly poor taste.
• An address from the superintendent Susan McGinley struck an interesting note. She encouraged respect, and addressed some of the misconceptions about the issues discussed to date at the meeting. She stressed that the way to recovery (economic, I presume) would involve a "collaberation effort" , and felt that "volitile issues were dividing the community". She felt (and I think many may agree) that Easton as a school district is "not living within its means", and was quick to point out that neither she, nor the business manager were not present during the earlier misapripriations. She proposed we as a community move forward focusing on "wants vs needs" , and that people would "have to take on multiple roles" in order to do so.
• Finally, the Board took time to congradulate Valarie Davis , one of Easton's Art Teachers who recently had a sculpture accepted into the White House, quite an acomplishment. She gave a very impressive speech about her motivation and drive to make the piece and gave the audience insight on the benifits of an art education and the power of "dreams actualized". She stressed self belief, personal self esteem and gave a lot of very credible evidence as to the importance of the Arts.
• This was about the point where the aforementioned Boardmember who took exception to questioning the validity of football funding while other areas suffered, took his opportunity to remind us that Valerie recieved her scholarships through her participation in track (this does not overlook the idea that girls track is still vulnerable to underfunding) and suggested the complaints about sports funding was groundless.
• One last note of interest from the meeting was that the soliciter informed us that "section 11-24 of the school code explains the only acceptable reasons for staff reduction (i.e- hiring or reducing the number ot teachers during this budget problem): 1.) At the recomendation of the superintendent 2.) school board or 3.) Department of education. He made it sound as though they were locked in the current teacher capacity and the collective "hands" of the board given these codes are tied.

More on last week's Boys & Girls Club meeting later. Have a good week.

Best,

Gavin