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Woodstock Times - Featured News | 7/9/2009 |
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Oversight oversight
Shot-glass issue has board members looking through a glass darkly |
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by Lisa Childers
During a lengthy Onteora school board reorganization meeting on Tuesday evening, trustee Laurie Osmond was chosen as Onteora district school board president, and Ann McGillicuddy as vice president. Both received unanimous votes from the five-member board at the July 7 meeting in Boiceville.
But the ongoing debate over souvenirs given at the drug- and alcohol-free Belleayre Bash to senior students in the form of a double-shot glass proved the major point of contention for the evening. The souvenir itself was only part of raised hackles generating from the public and from board member Donna Flayhan. Some speakers felt that district superintendent Leslie Ford had ignored the complaints, offering the public no option but a public outcry to the media. Others believed the lapses in event oversight should have been handled through the district administration, without a second front in the newspapers.
Deeply felt and contradictory views were expressed about the shot-glass issue.
"Using the media to verbally and publicly humiliate the district and its employees is not ethical or professional," argued graduate Tara O'Connor. "It only adds to negativity to the entire district." She suggested either a new policy to address allowable souvenirs or a tweaking of an already existing policy.
High-school graduate William Melvin said the prom had been very successful, well attended and without incident. "We Americans are hypocrites," he said. The venue for the Belleayare Bash, a non-alcohol post-graduation party for seniors, he added, was "saturated with ads for alcoholic beverages." Some of the music played, promoted alcohol drinking. Besides, Onteora had a tradition of buying glass souvenirs for seniors. "Last year it was tumblers, and the year before that beer mugs," Melvin reported.
Parent Christina Edwards complained that she had received no response even though she had called the district seven times wanting to speak with someone about the shot glasses. "My original phone calls were to try and be part of the solution, and it wasn't until after the un-returned phone calls that it escalated the way it did," she said.
After she first received complaints about the shot glasses, trustee Donna Flayhan said, she had asked superintendent Ford about what had happened and what the supervisory process had been "That was never answered, not even addressed, nor acknowledged ..." she said. Flayhan asked for an apology from the district.
Because no district money had been used, the oversight oversight had slipped through the cracks. Osmond said that the procedure needed revisiting.
Trustee Dan Spencer noted that the issue had affected people in different ways. "But the overriding concern from the people who contacted me as a board member was the way we brought it to the public domain, the way it was carried forward in such a negative way," he said.
Ford said that the school district was looking toward better oversight and other changes.
These folks aren't lifers
The new fiscal school year began with the swearing-in of Osmond, who has already served a year, and newly elected trustee Tony Fletcher. The board immediately discussed opportunities to reduce burnout through improved time management and a better sharing of duties. "School boards will sometimes have presidents that will serve for a six-month term instead of a year's term," Osmond said, "because I think we all want to minimize burnout and spread the opportunities for leadership as much as possible." The board agreed to evaluate where it stands in six months. The members also discussed ways to shorten school board meetings, with a ten o'clock target time for concluding meetings. This past year has seen meetings extend past the midnight hour.
In other business, the board will use an application process to fill the seats of recently resigned trustees Michelle Friedel and Richard R. Wolff, who had one year left in their three-year terms. Fletcher said he wanted outreach to the community, with board members canvassing individually in order to increase public interest. He said anyone interested but afraid to try could commit to serve a year, and then perhaps opt to continue. "I would really like us to craft an advertisement that is really positive," he said. The board expects to choose two new members at its September 1 meeting.
Whoever is chosen will remain on the board until the next election, May 19, 2010. The two lowest vote-getters in the school election will immediately take Wolff and Friedel's remaining terms until June 30, followed by a new three-year term.
Enrollment ups and downs
Ford told the board no budgetary provision had been made for an additional teacher to split the fifth grade class at Phoenicia Elementary. Traditionally the school's fifth and sixth grades only have one class each. "If enrollment goes down ... the way we set up the schools for our future, we are going to have to address this," Dan Spencer said. "If you only have 30 or 25 students in a class you are going to have to face this decision over and over again."
Osmond disagreed that enrollment was declining, noting that this particular class was larger than usual. "If you look at that fifth grade," she said, "we are not seeing a decline, we are seeing an increase..." Over the years, that class has continue to increase in size, she said. The incoming Phoenicia kindergarten class currently has 33 students.
Woodstock principal Bobbi Schnell was asked to weigh in on the schools' populations. She said the Woodstock School was full, with two kindergarten classes with 23 children each swelling to 25. Schnell said there was a waiting list of two children, who might have to attend another school in the district.
Flayhan said a possible solution to the oversized Phoenicia class was to mix grades, which Phoenicia has done before.
Trustee Fletcher said that he was not comfortable going over the county's class size average of 22.1 students per classroom. Parent Tim Rands, with two kids at Woodstock Elementary, said the school has continued to have problems with classroom space since West Hurley Elementary closed. He reminded his fellow members who have Phoenicia ties that they were elected to serve the whole district. "You need to look across the district and not be as self-serving, just because your knowledge of Phoenicia."
In other business, Russell Richardson, director of the iNDIE program, asked what the future holds when it comes to the relationship between his program and Onteora. Would iNDIE become only an after-school program, providing no credited curriculum through the school district? "I worry that first-time enrollment at iNDIE will drop dramatically," he said.
Ford said she planned to meet with Richardson on Friday to fine-tune the fall program. The board has budgeted $50,000 for iNDIE to continue as an after-school program in a newly located Woodstock site. The original iNDIE-occupied building on Route 28 in Boiceville is no longer available for that use.
The board has retained Kingston Daily Freeman as the official newspaper for legal notices.
Fletcher suggested an arts task force to explore and identify all of what goes on in the district that is art-related. He wants to draw on the district's strengths while addressing the weaker areas. He asked that the district recruit as part of the task force the large community of people directly related in the arts.
Fletcher drafted a letter of congratulations on behalf of the board for 2009 graduating students. The board agreed to continue this annual tradition. ++
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