Thought it might be helpful
for folks who may want to know more about School Committee work to get a peek
into Committee agendas, so here’s a quick guide:
Policy BEDB: Agendas and Relevant Materials dictates
how our meetings are crafted (http://tinyurl.com/l25lw6v).
As the policy states, “The conduct of public business should proceed with order and
efficiency with the hearing of reports, action upon the recommendations of the
Superintendent, and adoption of resolutions or formal policies as proposed by
the members themselves.” The Committee
By-Laws, which can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/kew6uks,
explain in what order agenda items appear and other useful information about
our operations.
The
goal for each and every meeting is to be intentional, and one key way to
accomplish that goal is to focus all meeting agendas on items that are required
and/or lead to actions designed to improve student outcomes. The Committee
Chair prepares a Rolling Agenda on a regular basis that includes items
traditionally requiring votes and/or presentation/discussion. (They are posted
on our “Agendas” page.) State law dictates some votes that Committees must take
(e.g. whether or not to participate in School Choice), and many other votes are
taken as part of regular business in order to approve, disapprove, or change
the Supt.’s actions (e.g. we vote the Monthly Budget Summary as confirmation of
our belief that school monies are, given the report provided, within keeping of
our approved budget and budget process; if we don’t agree, we vote not to
approve). Items for presentation and potential discussion include things like
MCAS results or an update on summer programming. Most of these items appear
each year on our agendas, and the Chair assigns them to the appropriate agenda
category or subcommittee, at the appropriate time, which starts to build out a
framework for each meeting.
Separately,
for each meeting, subcommittee chairmen may recommend additional agenda items, along with the amount of time they estimate each agenda item to take, to the
Chair. The Chair also asks the Supt. to determine how long she will need for
her Announcements, and estimates how much time she expects to be needed for the Consent
Agenda, the Chair’s Announcements, the Report of the Student Representatives, and Public Comment. Then she assembles all items
and slots them in, trying to balance the agendas such that required approvals
are completed on a timely basis, meetings don’t last too late at night, presenters
don’t have to come too frequently (out of respect for their time), etc. She may
delay some items if they aren’t urgent or slot new items in as they come up
(e.g. if a law is enacted that requires a new policy implementation).
Executive
Sessions are a separate part of a meeting that is not held in public, and our
Committee usually holds them after a regularly scheduled meeting. There are ten
reasons for adjourning to Executive Session and any item discussed therein must
pertain to one of those reasons (like negotiations with one of our unions). The
Chair organizes the agendas for Executive Sessions.
Our
agendas and materials are posted on the School Committee portion of the
melroseschools.com website under “IQM2 Meeting Portal” by the Committee Assistant, Mrs. Hogan. After meeting minutes
are approved, she posts those next to each respective meeting.
We look forward to many informative and thoughtful meetings this year and hope you will let us know if you have questions about them. Thanks
for following the work of the schools and the Committee!
