The importance of reading every word

By John McDaid | Saturday, 29 August 2009

New RI Dept. of Education (RIDE) Commissioner Deborah Gist has drawn a line in the sand for school committees that fail to execute RI education laws, according to an article in today's Providence Journal. In a situation involving the Woonsocket school district, Gist reportedly threatened both committee members and the superintendent with sanctions for failing to meet staffing requirements.

The significance of this for Portsmouth should be obvious, given the extended back-and-forth at last week's school committee meeting around teacher tenure, also a state-controlled process. There can be legitimate differences of opinion about the specifics of the case which occasioned the discussion — the non-renewal and subsequent re-hiring, with tenure, of a popular high school teacher — but there were some who questioned whether the school committee and their attorney were overstating arguments about the "sanctity" of tenure and the possibility of repercussions for hiring uncertified teachers.

Seems that the new commissioner takes state law pretty seriously, and I'm glad that the committee was able to find a way to both execute their legal responsibilities and, at the end of the day, return a respected teacher to the classroom.

But you can't please everybody. And one of the voices complaining about how the process was handled was new school committee member Cynthia Perrotti. She questioned how there could be confusion about tenure and argued that a request for RIDE to clarify their policy on emergency certification and tenure should have been discussed at a late-June meeting. "We have failed in that regard," said Perrotti, "We purposely did not describe this pending advisory."

"But it wasn't on the posted agenda," said Supt. Susan Lusi.

Perrotti responded, "I would like to remind the school committee members of law 42-46-6 which says that when something is not on the agenda that the school committee can add items to the agenda during the meeting by majority vote of the members. So because something is specifically not on the agenda for that night, ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to think about adding it."

(If you want to go play cellblock lawyer before reading the rest of the post, here's a link to RIGL 42-46-6.)

School Committee Chair Dick Carpender differed with Perrotti's reading, saying that this was not his understanding, and Supt. Lusi asked for the clarification on the law being referred to. Perrotti reiterated the statute number, which Lusi then read out loud:

"Nothing contained herein shall prevent a public body, other than a school committee, from adding additional items to the agenda by majority vote of the members. School committees may, however, add items for informational purposes only, pursuant to a request, submitted in writing, by a member of the public during the public comment session of the school committee's meetings," said Lusi. "So I'm not clear how this section squares with what you said we could do without violating the open meetings law."

Perrotti responded by reading the statute again. "It says that nothing in here can prevent a public body, other than a school committee, from adding items to the agenda by majority vote."

"Other than a school committee," said Lusi.

"Other than," added Carpender.

"Ohhhh," said Perrotti.

Ms. Perrotti has described herself at committee meetings as someone interested in numbers, and she has demonstrated that interest by drilling down into the financial reports and asking questions, which is certainly to be applauded. But we don't just elect the school committee to bird-dog the budget; they are responsible for making our town's education policy and seeing that our schools are run in accordance with state law. And they do it with words.

With a new sheriff at RIDE saying that school committees are going to be held accountable for what those words say, well, we'd probably be best served by reading them.

All of them.

Full Disclosure: I deliberately waited to post about this until I could watch the meeting again on Channel 18. If you question my transcript, I'll happily upload the video.

Tags: 
02871, School Committee, Budget

Comments

Cynthia S. Perrotti

Wed, 09/02/2009 - 9:57pm

Mr. McDaid,
You are absolutely right. I made an error when I cited RIGL 42-46-6 during the Aug 18 School Committee meeting as a reason why a School Committee member could add an agenda item during a meeting. As Dr. Lusi read, a member of the public (not a SC member) could ask for an agenda item to be added for informational purposes only. And according to the SC By-Laws, if a SC member has requested that an item be placed on the agenda and that request is denied, the SC member so aggrieved may move the SC to consider the issues in the meeting of the original request; this motion shall be determined by simple majority. But the focus need not be on trying to ADD an agenda item to the June 23 meeting; the focus should be on why the School Department and the Chair of the SC chose NOT to have an agenda item regarding tenure. Also, another way to convey information during a meeting is during the “Chairman’s Report” and the “Superintendent’s Report.” Simply stating that the School Department wants to verify their assumptions about tenure law so that they can follow the law consistently is an important piece of information that the public and the teacher should have been told on June 23.

Let’s recap:
Jun 9 Teacher Termination Hearing. I counted 31 times nontenure/tenure was stated in the transcripts. PSD understood the tenure law to mean that tenure would come on the last day of school (24 Jun).

Jun 15 Letter from PSD to RIDE requesting an advisory opinion. PSD wants to verify their understanding of tenure law--if tenure would come on 24 Jun 2009 or 3 years after teacher received full certification (10 Jun 2012).

Jun 23 Rescission of Teacher Non-Renewals/Displacements/Termination. SC rescinded the termination of the teacher from the Jun 9 hearing. NO MENTION THAT THE TENURE THAT WAS PROMISED TOMORROW MIGHT NOT COME, DEPENDING ON RIDE’S ADVISORY OPINION.

Aug 18 Explanation of Tenure Law. Dr. Lusi has a new understanding of tenure law. She assumes tenure would come when the teacher teaches for 3 years and comes back for the fourth year (30 Aug)

According the RIGL 16-2-9.1(5), the SC is obligated to make public relevant institutional information in order to promote communication and understanding between the school system and the community.

The agenda for SC meetings is written by the Chair of the SC and the School Department. Prepare an agenda in order to convey necessary information. Describe in the “Chairman’s Report” or the “Superintendent’s Report” relevant information if there isn’t a separate agenda item. The “sanctity of tenure” was the central element to the Jun 9th hearing. Why be mum about tenure on Jun 23rd?

Listen, I can not fault PSD for asking RIDE for an advisory opinion. It makes sense to me to make sure PSD’s current understanding of the tenure law is correct and they apply it consistently throughout the district. But I received many emails from residents thinking there was some sort of “deception” going on.

The Portsmouth Strategic Plan 2009-2014, under “The Role of the School Committee” states, “Re-building the relationship with the community has been a continuous theme in our work over the last year.” I’ve been on the SC for a little over three months and I don’t know the history on how and why the relationship with the community has suffered in the past. But we can only move forward. This Tenuregate episode has been a detour in re-building the relationship with the community.

The teachers and the public now understand that Dr. Lusi has requested an advisory opinion from RIDE about tenure law.

The second point I’d like to make is that financial information is of interest to me. As you stated in your blog—SC establishes policy; the Superintendent implements the policies. Also, the Superintendent prepares a budget; SC adopts the budget for submission to the Town Council. The Superintendent authorizes expenditures consistent with the adopted budget, and reports regularly to the SC concerning the financial condition of the school department.

As a newbie SC member, I’m trying to understand the budget and how the funds support the main strategic themes of Dr. Lusi’s administration. The Finance Department gives the SC members financial information that has columns with “adjusted budget,” “actual debits,” and “percent expended.” This could be a good tool to quickly see if the line items percent expended (or variances) are within the budget or if they are wildly out of balance.

During the 18 Aug meeting, I had some questions on the line item 54600 Custodial Supplies.
The end of May 09 report listed:
adj budget 47000
ytd debits 35735.88
ytd credits 0
encumbered 4383.55
balance 6880.57
%exp 85.36

The end of Jun 09 (which was the end of the Fiscal Year) report listed:
adj budget 87235.28
mtd debits 60056.26
mtd credits 0
ytd debits 95792.14
ytd credits 0
encumbered 11254.43
balance (19811.29)
%exp 83.98

And the adj budget set in Sep 08 was 47000. I questioned why the adjusted budget for this line item changed from $47,000 to $87,235.28. Ms. Tague responded and said that each department has flexibility in its sub-line items, so long as their top budget line stays the same. What value is this financial report if the variances reported are against an “adjusted budget” number that can change like the wind?

And what conclusions can you draw when you see that PSD spent $60,056.26 on custodial supplies on the last month of the fiscal year, when the initial annual budget was for $47K? I am very concerned about the educational welfare of the students of Portsmouth. Do we need janitorial closets filled to the brim with Clorox and Windex, or are there some other ways to spend the money to support the strategic educational objectives (like technology)?

I have a lot to learn in this SC member position. I accept and encourage a variety of opinions from and communication with the residents of Portsmouth.

John McDaid

Wed, 09/02/2009 - 10:27pm

Hi..
The posting above should have appeared at about 9:57pm but was not flipped live on the site until about 10:28pm because it ran into my spam filter. I am reluctant to describe the heuristics used by my spam detection tool (for obvious reasons) but I do apologize that what appears to be clearly non-spam got hung up for half an hours.. Sorry about that.

Thank you for your thoughtful and engaged posting; I urge folks to read it.

Best,
-j