Pittsfield School Committee to Discuss Operational Procedures
PITTSFIELD, Mass.—School officials will meet as the Committee of the Whole to discuss operating procedures for meetings.
School Committee member Heather McNeice asked that a discussion of meeting protocols be added to last week's agenda.
"The point of tonight is that to run a meeting, we're not going to continually refer back to the 300 pages that are in our handbook. What we need is a condensed one- to two-page document," she said.
At the Massachusetts Association of School Committees' "Charting the Course" training, McNeice expressed concerns with the climate and culture of Pittsfield schools' governing meetings.
She was asked about the committee's operational bylaws, and found that they are laid out over 13 pages. After reviewing them, McNeice thought to herself: "If these were the operating procedures for my classroom, I would have zero classroom management."
In recent months, the temperature of council chambers has risen as the School Committee took up concerns about alleged misconduct and parental communication.
McNeice feels they need around two "very clear" pages outlining how they do business, something she thinks the current guidelines in the School Committee handbook don't provide.
The item was originally proposed to go to the Policy Subcommittee for discussion, but was instead sent to the Committee of the Whole so that all members can weigh in before returning to the full committee.
School Committee member Ciara Batory said this is a time-consuming process and wanted to be able to look at all of the pages thoroughly, as it will apply to all members.
"I just think in the subcommittee meetings, certain things that are taken out, other members might not agree with, so if we're going to do it, we should do it together as a committee because that's what we are," she said.
"And we should do it on the floor, and we should do it one at a time. We should be thorough. We should let the public know, and we should be transparent about it."
McNeice clarified that she doesn't want to throw out the existing regulations, but wants a consolidated document that lays out how to run a meeting so it is clear.
There was also a mention of a retreat to talk about the committee's goals. Superintendent Latifah Phillips shared that every other district she has worked for has held one, often with the superintendent's participation.
Later in the meeting, they discussed communication guidelines between parents and the district administration, focusing on the chain of command when a parent brings forward a concern.
Phillips explained that oftentimes an email will be sent to another department, and the response to the parent is on behalf of the office of the superintendent.
"Now, sometimes that's not seen as a superintendent response, but it is," she said.
"…I need it to go to the right place to figure out how the system can operate properly, so this is not about people not getting responses; it's about who is responding to them, and that's typically the first step that I take."
Tags: school policy,
