Archive: Opinions

I'd like to offer a different perspective on the choice made by the school board addressed in your recent editorial. I should probably start by telling you that for the nine years, from January 1996 until January 2005, I attended school board meetings faithfully, rarely missing a meeting.That may sound vaguely like bragging, Dan, but really, who would brag about that? To put that another way, I can vouch for the fact that they can go on and on. But after a while, you begin to see repeating patterns and can recognize what is and is not typical and what is and is not appropriate.

Among the many tasks that the state requires school boards to perform at their reorganizational meetings every July is the setting of their meeting place, time and dates for the upcoming year. I'm not sure how far back it goes in this district, but certainly for the whole nine years that I attended board meetings, the regularly scheduled meetings were held on Thursday evenings. In addition, when it became necessary to schedule an extra meeting, those often fell on Thursdays, as well, because board members would reserve Thursdays for board business. Occasionally, a special meeting might have to be called on another day of the week. But generally speaking, any board member who was elected over the last 10 years expected to show up at meetings on Thursday nights.

No matter what the day of the week, attendance at board meetings, is usually sparse, as you and Dan Brown are not the first to note. As any of the current board members can tell you, during the time we attended meetings, Ted and I were frequently the only members of the public who were there. For the most part, large crowds of people tend to show up in 3 kinds of circumstances - when their friends or family are being recognized by the board in some way, when their Participation in Government class requires some participation in government, or when there is some kind of controversy brewing. Particularly in times of controversy, it really doesn't matter what day of the week the meeting is held. People show up in large numbers to have their opinions heard any day of the week.

Because people don't generally attend meetings regularly, over the years the school board has found additional ways to keep in touch with the public. In the year 2000, meetings started to be videotaped and shown on local access channel 16, which continues currently at noon on Saturdays and Sundays. Minutes of the meetings, after they're approved, have been posted on the school's website since 2001. Reports of highlights of the meetings have appeared in the Ithaca Journal, the board's official newspaper, the, now defunct, Lansing Community News, the Lansing Ledger and, more recently, your own Lansing Star Online.

Considering that this is a public school district, improving communication with the public deserves to rank high on every board's to-do list. If I had to suggest one thing that would actually make life easier for school boards when all is said and done, it is that providing complete information in a timely manner in as many ways as possible is actually the key to their success. In addition to the things noted above, that would include things like providing handouts at the meetings and holding regular open forums. Boards get into trouble when they fail to do so. When you think about it, it's only natural that when people get the feeling, rightly or wrongly, that information is being kept from them, they lose trust.From my point of view, it makes more sense to provide the information in the first place, than to go through the long and, not necessarily successful, process of rebuilding lost trust.

Regarding the actual setting of the day when board meetings are held, it is totally proper for the board to discuss and hammer out, however contentiously might be necessary, a time when all elected members can attend. In fact, had they chosen to meet at a time which prevented one of their members from attending, no matter who that member was, I would hope residents of this district would rise up in protest.I would be right there with them.

It's useful to remind ourselves from time to time, that each board member was elected, which means that each board member has a constituency expecting him or her to represent them. If any board member is prevented from speaking, so is his or her constituency. Revolutions begin that way. So, good for Christine Iacobucci for having the courage to fight for her right to represent her constituency. And bravo to the board for doing the right thing in the end and voting to meet at a time when it will be possible for all members to attend.

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