The BOE Majority and Attorney are now playing Thought Police
Superintendent’s Report
As we wrote on the night of the meeting, the Data Presentation did not present on the declines from the prior testing year to this year, and the comparisons are being made to State averages, not comparable schools.
And, as John wrote in a prior article, the lack of acknowledgment surrounding the declines and the refusal to compare our performance to surrounding schools vs. a State Average that is chock full of low-performing Districts is just evidence that the approach to the issue is to spin our declines as “we are doing great”
There was slightly more effort in explaining what is being done to address the declines, but more detail is needed.
Lastly, the question of whether BTC is going to continue as a teaching method was not answered until the end of the meeting, during which Dr. Varley indicated it was full steam ahead on what was a catastrophic implementation last year with little information on how last years issues were going to be addressed.
The first order of business after public comment on agenda items was approval of executive session minutes. During discussion Dr. Foregger raised an inaccuracy in the minutes, but was yelled at by Angela Penna and Frances for speaking about an item that is not iterated to be made public. If a vote on the minutes is going to occur in public why in the world wouldn’t objections to those minutes be allowed to be stated – why assume Dr. Foregger would have stated it in a way that would have violated anything? They didn’t even give him the chance?
During “New Business” the following transpired:
Dr. Foregger: I move to continue indemnification of sai akiri for her legal expenses in connection with the ethics case
Mrs. Penna and Frances: Tom! Tom! Dr. Foregger you are discussing a closed session item in public again
Dr. Foregger: No, I’m bringing up something for the Board to consider and I have the floor Frances
Frances: And I’m just warning you, Dr. Foregger, that you need to be very mindful about what you are going to discuss in public session as it concerns closed session items and warning you is all and now your actions are your own
Dr. Foregger: Okay, so the motion is…
Mrs. Stanley: (Inaudible on zoom but in-person attendees identified her whispering stated) “this is an ethics violation”
Dr. Foregger: What? I don’t think so (in response to Pamela)
Mrs. Penna: This is an executive session discussion
Dr. Foregger: I think we need to decide as a board…
Basic Parliamentary Procedure, as set forth in Roberts Rules of Order, states that when a Board member has the floor, he or she can and should not be interrupted. As we witnessed at the 9/14 meeting, when Dr. Foregger was reprimanded and warned by Frances, he should have been able to complete making a motion to the Board. He was cut off by The Board President. This is not following procedure and the motion was not properly handled.
Also, they assumed that Dr. Foregger would be violating some sort of policy before even hearing him out.
The yelling at Dr. Foregger didn’t just happen at the meeting, but afterwards in the cafeteria and hallways as well. Also overheard in the parking lot from a source within the meeting were three BOE Members speaking about sanctions against Dr. Foregger. We guess discussing these things at night in parking lots is how the BOE majority does their business. Isn’t that grounds for a sanction?
In any case there is video we obtained from attendees on at least one these interaction that might be made public if not already circulating. We aren’t going to publish it unless there is a denial – we’re not into Soap Operas.
By the way, isn’t the BOE Member chastising a BOE member in the hallway about the executive meeting worse than Dr. Foregger’s desire to discuss his objection to the minutes? He wasn’t even allowed to say what he wanted – what are they going to sanction? What they believed he was going to say?
So, what did Dr. Foregger do to welcome such a fierce response?
As stated, he explained why he was not voting to approve the Executive Session minutes. That is a public vote open to discussion, and all he did was explain what item was missing and, separately, attempted to make a motion to compensate for Sai’s defense in the BOE Majority witch hunt last year.
Remember this is the same group that publicly discussed their now largely defunct and backfired theory on how a BOE Member violated ethics standards (vaguely and weirdly). Dr. Foregger shouldn’t be the one worried about an ethics violation here.
Again, we’ve written repeatedly about how minutes are neither accurate nor comprehensive and are often politicized. This meeting was just another piece of evidence to the mountain that already exists.
I am new to town and have a child that will start Kindergarten next year. It’s very difficult to get up to speed with all the challenges and controversy surrounding the BOE. Who knew! Is there a summary document that might help someone like me who wants to see all of the issues surrounding our BOE? The bussing, legal fees, hushed sessions of BOE (this article), controversial new teaching methods, falling test scores but increased expenditure per student etc etc.
Hi James,
Thanks for your comment. There is a lot and it’s not so much complicated but tedious. I think the best “quick summary” might be our about page. Also, articles have links to categories that breaks articles up according to topics (you can also use the tag cloud?