This looks to me like one of those “Democracy is messy” issues, where some people claim they want to clean up the mess a bit. The problem is, proposed solutions often subvert the democratic process, which is messy by design. That’s what’s wrong with the latest policy revision suggested for the TUSD board.
Here’s the basic story. Right now, TUSD board meetings begin with a call to the audience where people can stand up and say what they want to say, praising or condemning TUSD policies and people, making suggestions for district changes or, in some cases, blathering incoherently. After the audience members are finished having their say, board members can respond to what’s been said. The change, proposed by board president Adelita Grijalva, is to keep the call to the audience as is, but eliminate the responses from board members. It’s a wrong-headed idea. If it comes up for a vote, the board should vote it down.
[Full disclosure: I hate meetings, at least meetings with large groups of people and formal agendas. I’m less an agoraphobe than an agenda-phobe. Having to sit through the endless noodling, pontificating, extemporizing and self-aggrandizing makes me crazy. That’s why I only show up at board meetings when there’s something going on I’m really interested in. I know some people enjoy these things. Not me. So I only occasionally witness what goes on at the meetings first hand.]
[Worth noting: Approximately 3,000 teachers and 4,000 support staff in TUSD don’t give a damn whether the board members talk or don’t talk after the call to the audience. They’re out there where the rubber meets the road, in the classrooms, the buildings, the grounds and the buses, going about the district’s day-to-day business of teaching and supporting kids. Issues like this one make the news and are chewed over endlessly by me and others, and they can have lasting consequences, but they’re not directly related to the good, often great, work going on in the schools every day.]
The Star article about the proposal mentions two rationales for removing the board members’ responses: first, board members sometimes talk about non-agenda items during their responses, which is a possible violation of open meeting laws; and second, the often caustic board responses spotlight dissension among board members which furthers the image of a divided board. My response to both rationales is: Those are problems, why exactly? If board members wander into violations of open meeting laws, the president’s job is to stop them. It can create tension, sure, but that’s no reason to end the board responses. And let’s face it, the board is divided, almost dysfunctionally so. Pretending that’s not so by having everyone smile and make nice on the dais is ridiculous.
I tend to agree with the decisions of the current board majority and Superintendent Sanchez—not always, but in the majority of cases. So the best way for me to understand a proposal like this is to imagine how I would feel if the board majority shifted and I disagreed with much of what they believed and proposed. How would I feel if, say, the Mexican American Studies battles were raging like they were a few years ago, and an anti-MAS board majority member proposed the change Adelita Grijalva has suggested? I’m guessing I would think it was an attempt to suppress dissent, and I’m guessing people on my side of the argument would be using terms like “gag order” to describe the move. So if I think I would object to the move if I were in agreement with the board minority, I should oppose it for exactly the same reason when I tend to agree with the majority.
Frankly, Grijalva’s proposal sounds more political than procedural. Since it’s a way of stopping board members from talking, it looks very much like a way of taking away some of the ability of the two board minority members, Mark Stegeman and Michael Hicks, to air their viewpoints. If that’s not true, if it fact Grijalva believes that a 15 year old policy which has existed for her entire 12 year tenure is no longer tolerable and needs to be corrected right now, well, that’s sure not the way it looks from here.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.
Thank you David. The public needs them to respond. it’s called accountability. Grijalva is simply trying to limit speech.
For once I agree David this is a bad political move, the public will not preseave it well
Thats Grijalava for you.. IRON FIST Jeffita…just like her Pops. Ah those dems….Thank GOD the republicans freed the slaves…..otherwise…well you know.
David: I find your commentary on charters and standardized testing to be generally well-informed and valuable.
RE your commentary on TUSD, I cannot begin to tell you how irritating it is for people who are being damaged by the decisions handed down by 1010 these days to read your posts on the district. Even here, though you have made the right decision on this particular issue (RE responses to the call to the audience), you could not resist coupling your opinion with a couple of outrageous asides.
1) RE how uninformed you are about the way a candidate you endorsed is running the board: So what made you think you had legitimate grounds to endorse her? She had a track record as Board President and leader of the majority for many months before last fall’s election. If I recall correctly, many commenters on your posts complained at that time about how the board was being managed. Videos of all the board meetings are accessible on the TUSD website. You didn’t look into the Board President’s governance practices in any detail before recommending that people vote for her?
2) RE your stated opinion that board governance issues do not really affect teachers and students: You obviously don’t know what’s going on with policy changes on the sites most affected by the deseg order. Whether the board majority puts adequate limits on the Superintendent’s power, whether they work constructively with the minority to set appropriate policies, and whether they support the right decisions about administrative hires and fires have had a direct (and negative) impact on several aspects of teaching and learning conditions on these sites. “Issues like this” are most certainly directly and concretely related to the good work going on (or not going on…or going on under increasingly dysfunctional and challenging conditions) in TUSD schools.
I suggest that Tucson Weekly give Betts Putnam-Hidalgo a regular blog or column about the TUSD board. As someone who attends every blessed meeting and pays CLOSE attention to what is going on with district governance and policy, Ms. Putnam-Hidalgo could do a lot of good in keeping the public informed.
Under the Arizona Open Meetings Law, if an audience member comments about anything that is not already on that meeting’s agenda, it is illegal for the board members to respond, discuss, or otherwise engage with it. https://www.azag.gov/sgo-opinions/I99-006
From the Arizona Ombudsman’s Booklet on Open Meeting Laws, accessible through this link:
http://www.azoca.gov/open-meeting-and-public-records-law/open-meetings/
Note that board members may “respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the public body, ask staff to review a matter, or ask that a matter be put on a future agenda.” The relevant section is provided in full below:
7.7.7 Calls to the Public.
In 2000, the Legislature clarified the limitations on open calls to the public during public meetings. A.R.S. § 38-431.01(H) now provides that a public body may make an open call to the public to allow individuals to address the public body on any issue within the jurisdiction of the public body. Members of the public body may not discuss or take action on matters raised during the call to the public that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Id. Public body members may, however, respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the public body, ask staff to review a matter, or ask that a matter be put on a future agenda. Id. See also Ariz. Att’y Gen. Op. I99-006.
The best practice is to include language similar to the following on the agenda to explain in advance the reason members of the public body cannot respond to topics brought up during the call to the public that are not on the agenda: “Call to the Public: This is the time for the public to comment. Members of the Board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Therefore, pursuant to A.R.S. § 38-431.01(H), action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter, responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date.”
Reality Check, you make some reasonable points. However, I want to correct a misreading of what I wrote. You imply I don’t think board governance issues are important. If I didn’t think this issue was important, I wouldn’t have written a fairly lengthy post about it. What I wanted to point out is that concern about what’s going on at the board level shouldn’t give the impression that the whole district is going to hell in a hand basket. As a retired teacher, I know that teachers are teaching and support staff are supporting on a daily basis and generally doing the best job they know how, and that should never be forgotten when talking about board/administrative level issues.
In the “Worth noting” paragraph, I tried to be very specific. It begins, “Approximately 3,000 teachers and 4,000 support staff in TUSD don’t give a damn whether the board members talk or don’t talk after the call to the audience.” I limited that statement to this one issue, not board governance issues in general, and I made what I think is a factual statement — that most staff don’t think much about these board issues like this one. And I ended the paragraph by saying this issue and others like it “can have lasting consequences, but they’re not directly related to the good, often great, work going on in the schools every day.”
Disagree all you want, Reality Check, I have no problem with that. But read the words I wrote, not the words you think I wrote. Hold me accountable for what I said, not what you think I said.
David: I did read the words you wrote, I interpreted them correctly, and I responded to the specific comment you made at the end of the “worth noting” paragraph:
You wrote, “issues like this…[are] not directly related to the good, often great, work going on in the schools every day.”
I wrote, “‘Issues like this’ are most certainly directly and concretely related to the good work going on (or not going on…or going on under increasingly dysfunctional and challenging conditions) in TUSD schools,” and I noted that certain aspects of how the board was being run “have had a direct (and negative) impact on several aspects of teaching and learning conditions on…sites” most affected by the deseg order.
And, while we’re at it: contra your absolutely unsubstantiatable assertion that “approximately 3,000 teachers…don’t give a damn whether the board members talk or don’t talk after the call to the audience,” I am personally acquainted with many who do give a damn about this and other issues relating to board governance. They just don’t waste their time attempting advocacy in a context in which they know it will not succeed, i.e. a context in which a 3-2 majority always approves every blessed thing the Superintendent ever suggests, whether it is right or wrong, whether it is damaging to the best interests of the district or not.
In sum: It seems to me that what you did rhetorically in the above post was to grant a point (that responses in the Call to the Audience should be allowed) and to attempt to minimize the importance of the point in your two asides. In that you probably have the ear of the board majority more than others do, granting the point was commendable. You took a public stand on the right side of the issue. I do wish, however, that you had been able to do it without denigrating at the same time the importance of what you were doing.
Good, reasonable response, Reality Check. You’re right that I wanted to point out the mistake of changing the board policy without elevating it to a higher level than I think it deserves. You see this as one instance of far larger problems concerning Sanchez and the board majority. I don’t see the other problems as looming as large as you do. Our different perspectives mean we give different levels of importance to this possible action.
With all due respect, David, you have admitted that your “perspective” is not that of a person who has paid close attention to the conduct of board meetings for the last year and a half, and if you have deep experience with the “on the ground” operations of any TUSD site and / or with trying to move student advocacy issues forward in this district, I am not aware of it.
To be quite frank: in my opinion, the difference between our “perspectives” on TUSD can be explained by this difference in our respective levels of direct experience with TUSD schools: I have it — and a great deal of it — and you do not. You are neither a parent in the district nor a teacher (or former teacher) in TUSD. Your teaching experience was in another state. You know quite a bit about education, and your thoughts on many topics relating to schools are definitely worth hearing. On the subject of TUSD, I’m sorry, but I give you a failing grade.
You can say quite a lot about Sanchez based on listening to him speak in meetings and at public events, and I would be the first to admit that he can be articulate, persuasive, and charming. But that says absolutely nothing about what is truly important: what are the specific EFFECTS of his leadership decisions on the quality of education being delivered to TUSD students? Until you can accumulate more direct experience in that specific area of concern than you have been able to do to date, I will continue to think (and occasionally write in the comment streams) that it would be best if you left commentary on TUSD to those, like Putnam-Hidalgo, who know the realities of what is going on with the board and in the schools — and the relationship between board level decisions and school conditions — better than you do.
There are two things that happened at the Board meeting around this issue that were neither covered in the Star nor covered here . This is the kind of thing that can happen what when you don’t actually LISTEN to the conversation that took place at approximately 2:55 into the meeting streamed at http://www.tusd1.org/contents/govboard/gbv… .
1) the currently existing Board Policy is written by the Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA). Is this organization, (which does have a policy writing arm) in the habit of writing policies that don’t follow the Open Meetings Law? That would be quite a surprise. For those who don’t know, these are the same folks from Maricopa that provided the moral compass a few meetings ago to shut down a potential Board declaration allowing parents to opt their kids out of standardized testing, a local issue of great importance to strong and vocal political supporters of the Board President and majority in the last election. This declaration looked like it had a great chance of passing, but then lo and behold Ms. Foster’s research indicated that ASBA didn’t support it so, oh well, shoot those political allies down, guess we can’t support that policy. (Full disclosure: I thought the declaration was a great idea because lots of other states are doing it and it is the kind of grassroots mobilization that will, someday, bring the test-ocracy in public ed to its knees) My point is, in that case, ASBA written policy holds no weight whatsoever. Can you really have it both ways?
2) Current policy states that public participation is welcomed. New policy states that public ATTENDANCE is encouraged. This was completely minimized by the Board President and was, thankfully, brought up again by a Board minority member. Since this minority member is almost a stated archenemy of the author of this piece, this objection, if covered, would have been quite complex for the author of the article if he had done the homework of listening to this long and onerous (about 15 minutes, maximum) discussion. Why? Because I believe that unlike the Board President, Safier DOES know the importance of the difference between participation and attendance, and I think he would have agreed that this is a considerable and undesirable change. (Obviously if I am wrong about that, I look forward to hearing it) To Safier’s credit, he is gingerly on Stegeman’s side of the seesaw in his opinion here, but covering the difference between participation and attendance might have actually knocked some of the other players right out of the game!
In any case, to treat this whole issue as if ANYTHING that is being discussed has to do with the comfort level of the board president or OMA restrictions, and not with a continuing trend to limit or excise public or minority voice on the TUSD Board is just foolish. The elephant in the room, as I have said repeatedly, was a very succinct Stegeman response to a 17 minute long string of opposition comments that frankly made the commenters look like they were hysterical and in some cases dreadfully misinformed. And just in case anyone was wondering, I believe that that whole 17 minute long string was outside of the agenda (there was no item that called for Stegeman to resign) but Stegemans comments were within it (correcting misinformation about previous votes cast on previous contracts similar to one that was in front of the Board that night)
Whoops, didn’t make that point in the first paragraph as I intended. What you can’t have both ways is that one day ASBA sets the moral compass for the Board and the next day it is irrelevant (to say nothing of breaking the OML….)