POTTSTOWN PA – Recent jottings from a reporter’s notebook:
How 180 Minutes Equals Only 14 Words
Robert's Rules Of Order
The Jan. 10 (2012) meeting of the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors has been described as a raucous affair, one at which cooler heads ultimately did not prevail. There was plenty of shouting as its public discussion of Pottsgrove School District plans for redistricting grew testy after more than three hours. Accusations flew back and forth. Board President Michael Neiffer closed the session abruptly.
None of that controversy is reflected in the board’s proposed and still unofficial minutes of its meeting, which were distributed Friday by the district via e-mail and can be found here.
The minutes, which may be approved Tuesday (Jan. 24) when the board next meets in the auditorium at Pottsgrove High School, Kauffman Road, Pottstown, are succinct. They contain only two sentences, with a total of 14 words, about the evening’s arguments:
- “Re-districting options were discussed;” and
- “Several parents spoke in reaction to the Redistricting Committee findings.”
Such brevity shouldn’t surprise those who follow Robert’s Rules of Order.
You remember Robert’s Rules? It’s the the stuff of high school civics and history lessons: a de facto guide to conducting public meetings, first written in 1896 by Gen. Henry M. Robert and revised many times since.
Robert’s Rules is very specific in commenting on commentary within board minutes. “Not only is it not necessary to summarize matters discussed at a meeting in the minutes of that meeting, it is improper to do so,” it says. “Minutes are a record of what was done at a meeting, not a record of what was said.”
Tuesday’s board gathering, by the way, will continue the discussion of two weeks earlier.
Superintendent Landis at the school board's Jan. 10 meeting
Bringing Out The Heavy Hitters
Depending on who you asked following the Jan. 10 Pottsgrove meeting, the district administration either “held its own” in making a case for the use of elementary grade-level education centers in its re-districting plans, or – and this is being polite – it didn’t.
Many audience members during that session publicly criticized Director of Education and Assessment Todd Davies’ presentation of the district’s reasoning, but a veteran board member observed that was akin to shooting the messenger.
Rest assured, the director noted, Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis and others scrutinized and approved every word and slide of the show before its delivery. Davies, the director contended, was merely the night’s target-du-jour for public wrath.
It will be Landis himself, and Assistant Superintendent Shellie Feola, who take Davies’ place as presenters during Tuesday’s (Jan. 24) follow-up meeting, according to an advance copy of the board agenda. It’s available for download from the district website, here. Time is budgeted for public reaction and comment following their remarks.
A Spring City Blogger Makes A Difference
Congratulations to Spring City PA blogger Jo-Lynne Shane, who last Wednesday (Jan. 18) excitedly proclaimed on Twitter that “$1,102 worth of food was just delivered 2 The Cluster Food Pantry in Pottstown … WOOT!!!”
Jo-Lynne Shane
What her Tweet didn’t mention was the role she played in that delivery.
Shane publishes “Musings of a Housewife,” in which she describes herself as a suburban Philadelphia mother of three who also is “a talker, a writer, and a collector of people.” Her blog covers “faith, family, food and fashion, and anything else that strikes my fancy,” she says. “Musings” is more than just a part-time fling; it’s a business. She also writes professionally for major companies like Udi’s Gluten Free Foods and Boston Market.
Shane reported she’s been impressed with the outreach center efforts of the Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities. Between Nov. 22 and Dec. 20 (2011) she established an online food drive for the Cluster at YouGiveGoods.com, a website created to help free food pantries across the country. Then it was simply a matter of asking her readers to contribute, if they were willing and able.
A truck with food purchased for the Cluster with the money donated by Musing’s followers arrived a little later and a little lighter than Shane hoped. Her goal was $3,000, with purchased food delivered before the holidays. No matter. “It is indeed a blessing to be able to help.,” she told one reader in a thank-you note.
Editor’s note: Notebook Worthy is a series of occasional articles; find others like it, here.
Related (to Pottsgrove School District redistricting):
- Notebook Worthy: Pottsgrove, The Master Of Brevity
- Pottsgrove’s Case For Ed Centers: A Nutshell View
- In ‘Horse Race’ Of Opinions, Pottsgrove Serves As Track
- ‘Grove Residents Want Proof Ed Centers Will Succeed
- ‘The Blues’ May Await Pottsgrove’s School Board Tonight
- Both Sides In Pottsgrove Redistricting Head To Facebook
- Pottsgrove Crowd Vocal In Opposing Educational Centers
- Advocate: Pottsgrove Centers ‘Best Access’ To Resources
- Debate Over Pottsgrove Redistricting Gets Started Tuesday
- No Matter What Plan Pottsgrove Adopts, Buses Ready
- Redistricting Info ‘Slanted,’ Pottsgrove Volunteers Charge
- Pottsgrove Redistrict Discussions Quietly Move Ahead
- In Pottsgrove, Redistricting Study Work Gets Started
- Pottsgrove Sets Dates For Redistrict Committee Work
- As Expected, Interest A’Plenty In Pottsgrove Redistricting
- Landis Calls For Pottsgrove Redistricting Volunteers
- Touchy Pottsgrove Redistricting Now Being Considered
Photos from Amazon.com, and the Musings Of A Housewife blog
“Depending on who you ask”? The six parents in favor of centers or the rest who are against!
Rick, there is another constituency from whom neither “side” in the redistricting argument has yet heard, but may soon. Those are district taxpayers who do not have children at all; and district taxpayers who once had children attend Pottsgrove schools but no longer do.
My casual and wholly unscientific talks with property owners in both groups leads me to suspect that if they can be convinced centers save significant (so far, unquantified) money now and in the long run (also unquantified), they might favor centers … no matter what parents wanted.
I make no claim that the people to whom I’ve talked represent a majority of their class. As a class, however, they DO represent a majority of all district taxpayers. U.S. Census 2010 figures for the 19464 zip code, the bulk of Pottsgrove’s attendance “market,” show that households with individuals age 18 and younger represent only 33.8 percent of ALL households within the zip.
See here: http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_DP_DPDP1&prodType=table
Bottom line? Maybe the statistics mean diddly-squat. Maybe they are of huge importance. I contend those passionate about either side of the re-districting issue ignore the no-child-households at their peril. And in that, good sir, it most certainly depends “on who you ask.”
Rick, as always, you’ve added something extra to the discussion. Thanks very much for your comment, and for reading The Post.
Joe Zlomek, Managing Editor
“Robert’s Rules of Order” is a non-collaborative means of decision making that is old fashioned, and may be contributing to the general frustration the public has with the school board at present. Robert’s Rules were put together around 1890 by a Civil War Army officer as an efficient means of running (and documenting) meetings. What’s viewed as being an effective way of running a meeting by the military after the Civil war is unlikely to be intuitive and most useful for today’s public.
Collaborative decision making is going to be more familiar to those in the audience that are part of corporations. It’s the process I use to facilitate meetings at a large Pharmaceutical company in the area, and the process most team leaders intuitively use to run their discussions.
Just a point to consider.
Regarding the main topic, Landis needs to clearly articulate the problem statement, and why we need such a dramatic change to solve that problem statement. I suspect a clearly worded problem statement may generate some alternative ideas. The leader does not always have to have the best idea to solve the problems! The leader needs to facilitate the group to find the best solution that the group can come up with. At present only one alternative has been clearly articulated, and there’s no clear problem statement on what’s trying to be solved. To the audience this appears to be a lack of transparency, and also lack of engaging and listening to the community for alternate solutions. Hence, the frustration.
Also a final comment regarding meeting facilitation is to have a set time frame and end the meeting before people get tired. Ten PM should be a hard limit. 95% of the last meeting was fine.
Don, you’ve made some excellent points here, and I thank you. Two follow-ups:
1) The board’s policies governing the conduct of meetings were adopted July 17, 2001. Policy 000-006 does NOT specifically wed the board to Robert’s Rules. Find it here: http://www.psba.org/districts_policies/p/489/POLPTSG006.pdf.
Instead, it says in part, “The rules of order for Board meetings and work sessions shall be those based on past usage and those currently utilized by the Board President and acquiesced in by a majority of those members present. At any time a member of the Board feels that the President is not proceeding in accordance with past procedures and/or the best interest of the Board, that member may ask for an immediate vote of those members present to change the procedure currently being utilized by the President to one which the majority of those present prefer.” The truth is that Robert’s is a handy reference that represents “past usage” … “acquiesced in by a majority.” Stodgy? Agreed. Dictatorial? Maybe.
Frankly, I doubt you or anyone else is going to read or be interested in a full transcript of the Jan. 10 proceedings, even if one was available. So the question then becomes, what’s the point of making one?
2) It’s my sense there are a lot of frustrations involved here, and transparency and engagement – or the lack thereof – are only two. There also are only two alternatives being discussed so far, centers and map lines. If someone’s got another way, Tuesday’s a perfect day to suggest Number Three!
Thanks, Don, for your observations, and for reading The Post.
Joe Zlomek, Managing Editor
Without a clearly defined set of issues, how can we suggest an alternative ?
The only thing they have presented with the centers is 2 schools to house K-2 (Where is the consoladation of resources they are selling us?) and one for 3-5 (3 is the big testing year and they want to make it a transistion year ?
We just spent money on Rocks, might have been better spent on aquiring Pius and renovating that for all the K-2, then shut down both West and Rocks, now that is not a viable alternative since we renovated rocks. If the Admin was going to push a centers approach, they should have done this before the Rocks money was spent.
Soon the High school is going to need renovations…
They talk about test scores for reading (meeting standards) but not the math scores… They talk about school populations, but exclude lower… They have a bus model but have not presented it….
Centers will not affext taxes one way or another vs the current model unless cutting teachers is the goal… Same schools, same staff same, same expenses. I just want to know why they want to experiment on our Kids ? I will go door to door to fight lies if we are not getting the truth after tomorrow
Just tell us where the savings will be and how this will be better for Educational enrichment and make our schools more sought after as a place people want to move into
There are quite a few more parents in favor of the centers approach than 6. These parents are just not the type to berate or try to force our opinions on others at a meeting. We speak our mind via letters and support and sometimes speaking up at meetings. I am most likely the most vocal and that is fine with me. Of course not everyone is going to agree but again it is up to the board to decide what to do fiscally for the district, which includes a diverse group of individuals (not just parents) as Joe has stated.
As for Robert’s Rules, Don, I know many boards (school, church, government) that still use them. So regardless of if they seem outdated to us they will continue to be used. I remember serving on a church board and had to use them … oi vey it was terrible!