A special Committee meeting
was held at 6:00 last Tuesday (prior to the regular 7:00 business meeting), where the
Committee participated in “refresher course” on our roles and responsibilities.
A panel came before us as guides: Atty. David Jenkins of Kopelman & Paige,
Atty. Tom Nuttall of Nuttall, McAvoy and Joyce, Melrose City Solicitor Robert
Van Campen, and Mass. Assoc. of School Committees Field Director Dorothy
Presser.
Atty. Jenkins led off,
speaking to how Committee roles changed dramatically after the Ed. Reform Law
of 1993, when the day-to-day running of the School Department changed hands
from school committees to administrators. There are state statutes regarding
Committee responsibilities; there are also clauses in the Melrose City Charter
(find it here: https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2005/Chapter105).
In general terms, school committees determine the selection, term, and contract
of a superintendent, review and approve school budgets, and set policy. They
perform other selected duties like setting performance standards for teachers
(by approving the collective bargaining agreement).
Regarding more specific tasks
and items gathered from his experience with schools, Atty. Jenkins noted that
regarding collective bargaining, as the bargaining agent (under MGL Ch. 150E),
committees must provide for confidentiality, for example, bargaining sessions
can’t be recorded for an individual member to view later, nor can a member
participate in a grievance discussion as that would likely be considered an
unfair labor practice. Regarding student discipline, the role of a committee is
to adopt policies. Regarding teacher discipline, authority is primarily vested
in the superintendent and principals. Regarding special education and
individual assessments (potentially asked when the budget is in question),
committee members are not entitled to any information that could potentially
reveal the identity of a student.
Atty. Jenkins spoke to
information to which individual members are entitled, and in most cases, an individual
member is entitled to no more information than a member of the public. As such,
members can’t meet with district personnel without clear policies by the
committee as a whole. If a committee member asks for specific analyses to be prepared, protocol
consistent with a citizen request is followed. Regarding asking for more
specificity on invoices from attorneys, invoices don’t have to be recreated with
more specificity since the district is not required to create documents that
don’t exist. Individual staff personnel files are confidential and would not be
provided. Student information would not be provided. The superintendent’s
evaluation must be public, but the document associated with the evaluation is
part of his/her personnel file and can be private.
Atty. Nuttall, specialist
in special education, civil rights, and discipline, and the district’s attorney
on these issues, referenced federal privacy laws (FERPA) and state privacy laws
(Regulation 603 CMR 23: Student Records). He offered a “cautionary tale” about
a district that accidentally posted comments about parents of special education
students on the district web site prior to its being noticed and removed, and explained
that in even presenting information with student names deleted, there may still
be enough information provided to identify the student which is unlawful.
MASC Field Representative
Dorothy Presser spoke to leadership roles of committees and superintendents,
explaining that committees are the “what” of governance (recommending and
deliberating) while superintendents are the “how” (implementing). She
recommends that committees adopt group norms, have each member sign, and then
strictly enforce them.