001[Music] okay [Music] all right the time is now 12 34 and i call this meeting the granberry independent school district to order but the records show that a quorum of board members is present and that this meaning has been dually called and that notice of this meeting has been posted in accordance with the texas open meetings act texas government code 5 chapter 551 normally we would go directly into executive session but i wanted to go ahead and have our prayer and our pledges and then we'll be going into executive session dr harrington will you join me please in prayer heavenly father we come to you today knowing that people are grieving this state over their children and those that have lost their lives god we pray for those in new validity we pray for the
002teachers we pray for the students we pray for the city god will also lift you up and pray for our teachers as they leave today for the summer session and we pray also god for our children who are out of school who need guidance and who need food and we pray that you will provide a way that we can take care of all those kids this summer god we thank you for all the blessings we thank you for the community in which we live god we love where we live and we thank you for all the positives here we pray for the divisiveness to go away we know that through you all things are possible we thank you again for the school we thank you for the teachers we thank you for the precious students
003and the parents that are raising them and we thank you for the community that provides the funding for this school help us be instruments of your wisdom and your love and god help us make the decisions that serve the children for which we work and then the teachers these things so i pray in the name of christ our lord amen amen and now we'll have the pledges if everyone will stand please [Music] one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all my intentions i pledge allegiance to the cactus one state under god one individual all right the time is now 12 37 the board will now adjourn into executive session pursuant to the following sections 551.074 discussion of officers employees and personal matters and 551.0 private consultation with the board's attorneys the time
004is now 12 38. thank you [Music] there [Music] fun [Music] where she oh i'll see okay the time is 201 pm the board is reconvening following executive session and the first thing we will do is go through our uh public comments and as um one two three seven uh well for five minutes i think we're good for their five minutes each um rules i always go through all speakers have completed a form and handed it in the speakers will be given five minutes each the board will not answer questions by the speaker i will ask questions or any other board member can ask questions to clarify anything that's being said and i do ask the audience to please respect each speaker and the first speaker up today is ms monica brown okay thank you um
005okay so i am monica brown and i was on the book review committee and i just want to remind people that if you want to know the content of the books because there's been a lot of comments about it it's granberrytexasbooks.org my goal is to raise awareness so parents and cranberry know what's in the library and what's still being put in the library by the librarian i'm assuming i think the parents need transparency and they need to know and then at that point i'm not sure what will happen next but i just want to make sure that they are aware also that we as a committee and not a committee but a community are going to make sure that you all including the librarians and the principals have copies of all the reviews we've done
006because we have emailed you with no little to no response almost none from board members mark jackson being one of them didn't ever reply to anything i sent and that sends a message that you don't want to talk to us but i have been told that you do some of you do and we do too i want to communicate so i want to make that clear but i am going to make sure that you get a copy of every book review because i've sent them through email and i'm not certain that people are reading them so i need to make sure you have a copy of that so that you understand the responsibility maybe you do ef local the newest ef whatever that y'all just voted on last time also puts the responsibility on the
007board on the superintendent on the librarians on the principles to take care of things that are inappropriate in your libraries okay but after we came and spoke we understood that if we did not formally challenge books that there was no challenge so we have formally requested reconsideration of materials i've gotten a notice from two different principals one of them this morning saying that a committee has been formed it is stacked with gisd employees again and two parents which is exactly again i asked would you please informally do this and that was a no and then would you please reconsider how you go about reconsidering materials and again i was concerned that it would be stacked and it is like five to five to two i think is what it is um [Music] so that's that
008um a couple of the accusations that mark jackson had i just wanted to say that i did turn in one book that i was mistaken on and as soon as dr glenn brought it to my attention which i appreciate i made it correct and said i'm sorry there's a book called lawn boy and there's two lawn boys one is the terrible one and the other one i don't know what's in it no telling but as soon as i understood i had made a mistake i made it right and he gave the impression that i was trying to bring up books and make a stink about something that's not there so that truly was an honest mistake and he didn't say how many books i had nailed and was accurate about that were vulgar obscene sexually
009explicit child pornography you name it it's in your school it's in your library and it is your responsibility to take care of it not mine and not karen's and not anybody else here though we have a growing group of people who will review books and we'll we'll form formally reconsider use your reconsideration process and turn it in so i'm just saying that's what we're doing though it isn't what we wanted to do i wanted to take just a minute to talk about uil and i appreciate all the time y'all took i appreciate the survey that was done by the the coaches i think the majority of the homeschoolers i think this is true are not intending to use that anyway but if you did open it up that you would find that you you could
010work through any problems that you have i don't think it would be a terrible situation as dr glenn said we're talking probably less than 20 maybe less than 50 students would participate anyway so i don't think that is the biggest there was a lot of time used at last time talking about it and again i appreciate policy and trying to make sure everything is in order but i don't think it's the elephant in the room it's not that big of a deal and all of these children will grow up together we're all they're going to be adults too and no one's going to wonder where they were educated they're going to be people in a community working together and i believe that's the same situation you have now some are being home schooled some are
011homeschooled part of the time and then put in the public schools and private schools they go back and forth so we're all in relationship together and i don't think it's that big of a deal personally i me be finished um oh the other thing that mark jackson brought up was that i was talking about books that were gathering dust and truly i have no way of knowing all i know is that if i find a title and it's in fallout discovery which is your library sort of online catalog if it's in lit circle i found one this week about something about elephants but okay and i'll go it's inlet circle maybe it was used 20 years ago i don't know there's no way for me to know that so to accuse me of bringing something
012up that's causing dust that no one's using i don't know my intention is just to say here's what i found would you take care of it that's all i want to do and i want to finish the review of the original books because that process was only three to four minutes per book so that's my intention and that's all i have thank you thank you ms brown i'd just like to respond because i know the the book issue has been a concern here and uh and the board has adopted a new policy uh policy that was recommended by by tea and as far as the educators on the committee it'll it'll vary campus to campus but one thing that uh that we can assure anyone who challenges a book for for reconsideration they will actually
013receive a written statement from the the district on every book that is that is challenged for or has to be reconsidered in our libraries okay i appreciate that and we do you know i i would say we have some really great educators in this district who are going to take this process seriously and i'm just i don't want to discount their their their passion and their service to this community and i know you're not but but truly our hearts are are to make sure that that we do this right for for all kids and for all of our our community okay um the note i got today said the librarian will be on that same committee the librarians already voted by having it in the library in the first place so that concerns me but
014i do hear you and i do agree there's many great educators here my experience with the book review committee was really bad people i thought would have voted completely differently right now they're looking at daughters and to devils over at acton middle school and if they won't put that if they won't pull that book i don't believe they'll pull anything so we'll see time will tell but it is not on me it's on you guys and i'm going to make sure you have what you need and other people are doing the same thing it's not just me i'm not going to carry the burden it's not mine but i am going to make sure i do what i came to do and that's review those first books if i come across others i'm going to
015make sure you've got the content so you can make your you can go check and see if i'm correct or not and then make it on your own shoulders what you decide thank you miss brown next step was nanette samuelson hi good afternoon i'm annette samuelson and today i came to talk about the agenda item for the adoption of the new standard operating procedures thank you for the opportunity to speak today first i'd like to read a couple of statements from your board governance vision and goals all decisions made by the trustees shall be guided by community standards and expectations determined through active community engagement and then under the board vision beliefs and goals the board demonstrates its commitment to the vision by using the vision to guide all board deliberations decisions and actions and
016then lastly under your mission statement we believe partnerships between parents students teachers and the community are vital to the access to the success of our school system so with that said i believe the changes made to page four to limit the public from speaking or deciding to cancel public comment and move to another meeting or another meeting time is in direct conflict with your state admission and goals after all it's usually only 12 times a year that the public is allowed to address the board let's let granberry isd be an example of transparency and commitment to listen and involve the community i hope you reject those changes [Music] and then moving on to the changes to develop and developing the agenda i am opposed to the changes on principle and in practice first you are
017each elected by voters to have an equal voice requiring three of you to agree to play something on the agenda one stifles your voice could possibly create alliances or division and three it undermines the public's vote and in practice i don't see how you would actually accomplish this three-person agreement without violating your own communication guidelines or the open meetings act how will one of you gain agreement with the other two without talking about the issue what if the first two don't agree do you move on to four and five so you see this is a slippery slope if not illegal and again undermines the transparency you are actually casting your vote when you when you don't agree or when you decide you're not going to agree to put something on the agenda so on your
018communication with the board the second item says board members may not and shall not communicate with any board any other board members for the purpose of soliciting votes with respect to items of business that may come before the board so requiring one part one board member to go try to get two other people to agree with them to put an item on the agenda is in direct conflict with your communication and again as i said you're voting when you decide you're you're gonna not put something on the on the agenda so thank you that's all i have to say appreciate it last question sure what you were talking about on page four can you tell me where you were talking about because i don't think we made any changes on that page so i just
019want to make sure i understand what you were talking about it was in so i couldn't print the document this is the old document it wasn't it was password protected so i couldn't print it oh i'm so sorry so if i recall it's under um the part where which part are you talking about about the public speaking yeah there was a whole like two or three pair sentences added in that last paragraph on page four that said that to have the board meeting move along faster for lack that's not exactly what it said but that the presiding officer could move comments to the end of the meeting could move comments to another board meeting could decide to limit the amount of time which is different from what it currently says there were two or three
020sentences added in the middle of that paragraph we took some sentences out in the last legislative session before it used to say that we could limit the number of people that would talk and that in the last legislative session we had to take out so what we ended up taking out were statements that would have limited the number of people that could talk because now there is no limit if you sign up in time like we did a few uh months ago we would have ended up like we did then talking for an hour or two i am so sorry that you did not get that copy that was definitely not supposed to i got it i just couldn't print it so i don't know i'm so sorry but it was right i marked on
021the old one where it was it was um on page four under board meetings it says in kind almost in the middle it says the board provides a public comment section on the agenda for each regular regular meeting and then inserted in there are comments about the presiding officer can move the comments to another meeting or another time which is kind of like saying okay we don't want you to speak right now so you can come back at another board meeting and talk but like i said there's only 12 chances unless unless there's a special meeting so those were the the inserted right before this public comment session is limited to five minutes it's right in between those two did you were you able to find it i see what you're talking about um that
022was part of the tasby change okay okay okay yes i see what you're talking about yeah okay we'll talk about that when we get into it but now i understand exactly where you're talking about thank you very much thank you and next up is mark lowry oh he left okay nathan criswell [Music] good afternoon madam president board [Music] so we are here today to talk about these proposed changes to the rules that govern this body and this is a special called meeting um it's thursday in the middle of the afternoon we just had a extra long executive session and you know we're finally getting around to it i've seen these types of changes in other areas of government and other bodies of government in 2013 a woman named terry ramire was elected to round rock
023isd and she started doing what she was elected to do she started doing what she promised to do and she started raising questions and exposing some of the things that were going on down there that board at the time took very similar actions that you all are proposing you're taking today by requiring three people to put an item on the agenda et cetera trying to limit trustee's speech about issues they took very similar actions and they changed the rules so they could start using the rules against her they went on to censure miss romer six or seven times she kept getting reelected because she was doing the right thing i said that because there's a pattern of behavior here in school districts a lot of times will mimic each other what we're experiencing right now
024these rule changes uh were happening in mckinney isd a few weeks ago and now guess what they've started censuring one of their trustees they say hey you know you got to follow these rules now when a lot of times the proposed rules fly in the face of the open meetings act as nanette samuelson pointed out this deal about having to have three or more people put an item trustees put an item on the agenda you start looking at walking quorums and daisy chains and that's not good and you know i don't know if you had a legal counsel look over this but it's something i would suggest before taking any action on i'm not an attorney and i don't even pretend to be one but i know when it doesn't jive with the statutes now
025i had some other stuff here if we're going to be proposing some rule changes i thought i would give some community input first and foremost seeing as to the holy bible is the single most impactful book ever written in the history of man copies of the holy bible should be made available through a partnership established between this isd and local churches to give bibles to students that want them at a you know have a box of them in the library they can be teen bibles king james version whatever something like that needs to happen and dr glenn you and i had exchanged emails a while back um that offer is still on the table if y'all would rather have them be just something they can check out in the library we can get copies of
026those [Music] still would like to move on that another proposed rule change would be for this board before the meetings to show your work so when i was going to school here we had to show our work in math class right you have to show how you arrive at your solution so the posted agendas list under this proposed rule change uh that i'm suggesting here and now uh must contain any and all supporting documentation with each deliberation and consent agenda items excluding information considered mandatory exemptions under open records and open meetings act and trustees should not take action or deliberate any item lacking supporting documents and why is this important you know for the last few years we've been pushing transparency you know a young man was elected several years ago he ran on it
027we finally you know have these meetings streamed now and i do appreciate that but we still have work to do in that area and one of the ways that the district can improve is by making these supporting documents available online for example the proposed rule changes yesterday i sent an email to you madam president and you dr glenn asking for the rule changes and you said well we'll put them on the website after we pass it tomorrow i'm sorry man madam but that is unacceptable in my opinion and i don't think that is how a transparent government should be operating and it flies in the face of transparency itself now if we're going to keep making some rules another rule i would like to suggest is a rule saying that this board must adopt a
028tax rate that does not increase the tax bill measured in dollars for the average household in your district and i say that because people are hurting the other day yesterday i was talking to you paula mcdonald who were telling me a story of a couple that moved from california and they started getting emotional talking about how they had to move because they couldn't afford it anymore the same thing is happening here with property taxes people that have lived here and grown up here and you know generations in this town and county are being forced out due to property taxes and it's not happening on a huge scale yet but it is a problem and there are some people in this community that have an elitist mindset that say you know we need to stop building
029houses that cost less than 500 000 so if you would please consider those rules [Music] and last but not least if we're going to operate under the constrained budget a way to maximize the education potential is to start downsizing the administration and offer those administrators a path back to the classroom where they i believe are more needed thank you thank you mr cruzwell next we have dave eagle [Music] madam president board thank you for allowing me to talk i'm dave eagle county commissioner precinct 4. i'm here to talk about the proposed sop changes i'm going to read from the 2019 version that's currently online any member of the board of trustees may request that a subject be included on the agenda and the president shall ensure that any topics the board or individual trustees have
030requested be addressed on that agenda are scheduled for deliberation at an appropriate time in the near future i'll skip on down to the last sentence of that paragraph the board president shall not have the authority to remove from the agenda a subject requested by the trustee without the trustees specific authorization commissioners court has the same thing each commissioner including the county judge has a unfettered legal right to put an agenda item on the agenda without having to go discuss this with any other commissioner or anybody else for that matter if i i tell my constituents if you have an agenda item that's related to county business and we got and it's something that i feel like we can get on the agenda i'll put it on the agenda i may vote against it but i'll
031put it on there so you can be heard anyway your new proposed language says when three or more members of the board of trustees agree that a subject be included on the agenda our first question i've got is have you sought a legal opinion on that particular language if so i'd like a copy of the brief and as ms samuelson alluded to i think you better get i would highly recommend that you get a legal opinion on that because i believe you are treading in illegal territory uh why this is a bad idea it violates the open meetings act right on its face in my opinion page six of your current sops define a quorum as four or more members well three will be three quarters of a quorum which is four here's a short
032list of problems as i see it it invites forming alliances behind the scenes it quashes a dissenting opinion or idea in essence it's a gag order against a trustee who might want a controversial subject on the agenda it puts a trustee in a position to try to solicit other members to go along with an agenda item it invites forum shopping in the legal terms that means going and finding the court that will agree with what i want them to do for all these re reasons this item should not be in this proposal sops and the other question i've got is why is it on here to now why is this today why is this a special meeting for this what immediate problem is trying to be remedied here and who is it that perceives it
033as a problem and i'm asking this rhetorically who suggested this why is this i'm gonna i've got to skip through here because your executive session was not legal either by the way we can talk about that at another time if you go look at government code 550 550-1071 it spells out when you can go into an executive session to consult with a lawyer and what you all put out there is not correct anyway i was told that the srps are between you and you it's not your sops also are between you and the citizens of this county and i want this opportunity to set the record straight and i always feel time constrained when i'm up here what i believe is your role as school board members who are elected by folks like me you
034do not work for the teachers you work with them but you don't work for them you do not work for the coaches you work with them but you don't work for them you do not work for dr glenn the superintendent you work with him you do not work for the administrators here you work for me and you work for the taxpayers and you're the people that stand in between the taxpayers and how the school system is operated and so i receive a tax statement every year from the appraisal district i think everybody's gotten a ridiculous one this time that proves that i'm paying for this me and the taxpayers out here are paying for this and we want what's in the best interest of the school children all of us do but part of that
035is listening to the parents who are paying for this listening to what they want and having an uh sop where you got to go around in the back behind the scenes and get two other people to agree with you on an agenda item is absolutely flies in the face of transparency we ask you to stand in the gap between us taxpayers and the school district on behalf of the children it's always on behalf of the children let me tell you what i want i may not want a consensus from you on everything i know they teach that in school board school but i don't want a consensus i want people to have good robust disagreement and arguments about controversial issues we need to be able to discuss this i want to hear all sides of
036the story whatever the case this proposal i'm going to go straight to the finish i request that you table this today this was not published for the people to see it's not read the copy that i've got is not redlined i had to take the current one and the one that's proposed and try to figure out what's been changed i would appreciate a redline version i'd appreciate a 30 60 or 90 day period for you to let the people out here look at these proposed changes just like the feds do the state does for rule changes and i would request that you come back to this at a later date when people have had a chance to review this so i urge you not to do this today thank you thank you mr eagle and
037next we have uh jerry doherty thank you madam chairman and thank you board members for the opportunity to speak to you today uh some of what i have to say may be a little repetitious given the previous speakers but i want to make some points that may be in addition to those they've already made i would echo the thing is my concern as to why this is before the board today you have a meeting scheduled for june the 13th which is less than two weeks away and why we had to rush this to a special session is beyond me especially when the special session is being held at noon on thursday i would agree with the other speakers it smacks of a lack of transparency and a desire to not have the ultimate in community
038involvement so i i have a concern with what we're doing today based on the timing of it but also have a concern with the document itself because in that document there's a lot of conversation about the matter of the team of eight and i have some familiarity with the concept of team of eight and there's a lot of things in this particular document that basically are contradictory to a notion of teamwork that you talk under the team concept section of this about minimizing confusion and discord well i would see what we're approaching here today promotes discord among the board members rather than minimizing it you talk in that same section about improving working relationships i do not think that what we see on paper today that you're going to consider as being anything that would
039improve a working relationship between the seven board members that are here on page four you talk about in that document about allowing for meaningful public participation and i can tell you right now that at noon on thursday in june is not a time where you're going to get maximum meaningful participation in what you're doing i too am concerned about the area of call under developing the agenda which is on page five of this document where it specifies that there needs to be three or more trustees to get a doc an item on the agenda uh in in regards to that i'm not quite sure myself why it is that you chose three as opposed to two i know why you didn't go to four but i don't know of any other districts and i certainly
040don't know everything about all 1100 school districts in this state but i don't know of any other district that has three as a requirement i do know some that have two as a requirement to try to avoid a situation where you can't get a second at the board table to discuss a particular item that's on the agenda so i don't know if the problem here is that you don't trust the chairman of the board the presiding officer to have her discretion to work for the superintendent to get items on the agenda or if you don't if there's a particular board member that you're trying to to do an end run on to prevent them from having an opportunity to get items on the agenda that they would want discussed by setting up the three and
041this has already been pointed out to you you are only one vote away from from actual approval of any item that a board member gets on the agenda because the three have obviously already uh concluded that that they would want that on there so the uh under on page six under parliamentary procedure i made some notes about that it says in there that you're going to to follow follow robert's rules of order revised now i i really think you need to take a look at that as to what it uh you're going to have as your governing document on how procedures are to be followed how the rules are to be followed because at the last board meeting that i attended robert's rules of order were breached at least twice that i know of and
042probably more than that when there was a motion made and there was no second given then there was a lengthy discussion of of probably close to 30 minutes without there being a second to the motion at all and then there began to be a negotiation to get the person who had put the motion forward to withdraw the motion all of that is a breach of robert's rules of order and the the other one was when one of the board members was allowed to address the audience directly and led to a confrontation between the off the office the the board member and the people in the audience i too am concerned about this issue of these three people because in on page 18 of your document it talked i'm not going to read it to you
043but you know what the term walking quorum means and you are putting your board members in a situation where inadvertently unintentionally they can stumble into a walking quorum and if that winds up happening any action taken on the board on that particular item that is favorable to that that item is is going to be um under uh under legal attack so i would encourage you to do as you've already been encouraged to do to table this document for consideration later when you have a chance to to clean up some of these things that have been brought to your attention thank you mr daughter and last let me make sure yeah uh mr cliff criswell [Music] i'm sure at one point you met well but this at 12 30 where the working class cannot attend is
044not good you are either right or left and you know this to be a fact i don't care what people say about me i know who i am i don't have to prove anything to anyone control money lies and deceit let it be known that we did everything for america's children consider approval of the gisd board's standard opening procedure pass it before you read it what have you heard that before [Music] with all the porn in the schools crt issues bond failures no wonder they fail and negative attention i look at for the board to try and silence the citizens and that's what you're trying to do you and i will not be i will not be silenced i guarantee you i will not be silenced we're living in a time where satan does even
045even hide anymore and the world still can't see him especially the school board the books will go in the library enough of this porn bibles are going back into schools same thing happened in mckinney policies so they could go against the only conservative on the board the only conservative we've got on the board this is a culture war you need to wake up we make a mistake in thinking that about politics simply in terms of left versus right right dynamic the opportunity relies today and focusing on on the top bottom dynamic and elite class of people act in their own interests and against the interest of the vast majority of americans those who are still attached to the idea that america is a force for good and that and the fact that young children should
046be protected of the radicals we never win if we play for the rules i don't play the rules anymore if we play by the rules set with elites who are undermining our country we can be flat and lose every battle we can be implied and actually deliver results for the great majority of americans who are fighting for their small businesses fighting for their jobs fighting for their families in conclusion we make a mistake in thinking about politics simply in terms of left versus right dynamic the dynamic is sufficient but where the opportunity to rely realize today is focus on top versus bottom dynamic an elite class represents resent a small number of people with influence and knowledge and based institutions are acting their own interests and against the interests of the vast majority of the
047american people [Music] those who still attest to the idea that america is a force for good who think to take just one example that young children should be protected from the opposition the radicals [Music] that's all i've got to say thank you mr cruzwell [Music] okay at this point you have the school board procedure book in front of you are there any [Music] items that you want to talk about on that madam president i would like to table this for another day because when i looked at this i was given this may 31st at 1 17 pm and from the email it says the school board procedures handbook states that annually annually we should review and revise this document document hasn't been revised for three years since 2019 so my question is why are we
048doing this now also dr harrington has reviewed the latest latest legislative changes so i'm asking which ones which house bills and recommendations for me and other board members and has revised our handbook um nobody asked my recommendation for any of the changes i was not included on that and as some of the speakers have said these documents were not redlined so it was very hard to go through and figure out what was changed and what was not um and so i would move that we table this and tell because i can't clearly see without it being redlined what's a change from the other i had to go through and pick word for word and it's just and then to have such shorter time to go through it it wasn't sufficient um let me answer some
049of those questions for you the reason it has not been looked at since june of 2019 was because with covid we had other things that were more important for us to work with and that actually dr harrington has been working on this updates that revision had to make sure we realized so about six months so so that's what was going on as far as that was concerned um so i just wanted to make sure that i answered that in public so that the public would also know that that is why nothing had been touched since 2019 we just with covid we just had not gotten around to that i also shared some of the other questions and concerns that the audience had as well and that's that you know why are we calling a special
050meeting today in the middle of the afternoon this could have very easily been added to our school board meeting on the 13th and i would like to know since i wasn't included in the recommendations made to the changes who put these ideas out there why were these proposed changes not made available to the public before the meeting too it was hard for them to get those they had to ask and so um those are some other questions that i need answered as well okay the reason for the meeting being at this time is we had i wanted this to be a meeting where all of us could be here unfortunately uh mr jackson started with the meeting but he had a medical emergency and had to leave as we talked about in our closed session
051we had summer launch at 11 o'clock and so as to not have to make people that are working from the board have to go then take another time off that's why we were trying to get it done right after the summer launch was done and later on this evening ms gore is leaving and she will not be able to be here for next monday's meeting and so those were i was trying to get it so that all seven of us could be here at the time that this was looked at so it was not in any way trying to subvert anything by putting it in the middle of the day what i was trying to do was get it so that all seven of us would be here so okay and the other reason i'd
052like to ask to table it too is because like i said the recommended changes i was not included on that nobody asked for recommended changes that i would like to make okay and so can you answer the question as to why i was not included no one really was asked we'd been talking in board meeting well in board meetings and during the time that you and ms gore were brought onto the board that we were in the process of making the changes to this having to look through the legislative changes that were being made so that we would be in compliance and i never went out and asked anybody for recommendations people called me with recommendations so there was never a sending out for ask so so no it was not anything where you were
053you or anyone else was uh kept out of a loop as far as that is concerned so if you felt that way i i do apologize it was not meant to be that way it was different board members called up and said hey why don't we look at this and so that's how that happened so those are all great questions because i would like the public to know that nothing was trying to be underhanded or anything is just board policy the school board operating procedure handbook is supposed to be reviewed each year because coveted hadn't been done we were just getting around to it it's something that had been worked on for the last six months we had discussed it among ourselves um that it needed to be done it this just seemed like an
054opportune time for us to get together to do it because i wanted all seven of us here if anyone felt it was supposed to be any other way as far as that we were trying to do something underhanded i am sorry it was not meant to look that way and i hope that mr jackson is going to be okay so as far as tabling it is concerned ms parliamentarian do we discuss that or how do we handle it okay so so i would like to make a motion that we tabled this would anyone like to second that you will second that okay then all of those in favor raise your hand [Music] all those opposed to that change okay in that case then it cannot be tabled because a even vote is a no we
055can continue to discuss it we can have a motion to continue discussing this on okay i can ask for another motion of what you want to do i would you can make a motion to pass that you can make a motion do whatever you want uh madam president i make a motion that we pass the proposed standard operating procedures as presented and i will second that we can now discuss it now that we have a motion and a second so i'd like to discuss the um going from one trustee to three trustees to put something on the agenda i have the same concerns as the public um why are we fixing something that's not broken i'd like to know what is the intent behind this procedure change who put this on here and why because
056if a constituent only gets to talk to one trustee with no time to contact another trustee that's cons that constituent's voice is not being heard and why why would we want to do something that could constitute a walking quorum um the speakers touched on that earlier i don't think i need to elaborate on that they did a good job also when you're deliberating with somebody if you don't get the answer you want with the first or the second or the third it could very easily be a walking quorum open meetings are the only place to talk about issues so why restrict or silence a trustee and not just a trustee but the voters the community this is going after a trustee's freedom of speech and also the voters i mean they vote for us they
057entrust us this marginalizes it also marginalizes a minority board member i understand perfectly i think i understand perfectly why we're proposing these it's a way to control someone who asks too many questions or puts things on the agenda that aren't popular i'm speaking for the majority of our constituents who also i feel like this is going to stifle their speech i'd like to propose that any and all agenda requests be proposed at the end of every meeting and placed on the agenda for discussion and consent it should be done done in front of the public so that we're transparent and if we need lawyers and it should need to put verbiage in place to make it legal i don't agree with this any trustees should be able to put on the agenda what they want
058we are all duly elected these proposed changes don't prevent constituents from asking a board member to put an item on a d agenda correct no i would agree though with ms gore that i think two makes a lot more sense to me than three because then that way you do have someone that would be as one of our members of the audience talked about having someone who would be able to second whatever you came up with and it would also allow the person who is going to put it on the agenda to have a chance to [Music] to get a better idea of exactly what they want to say so that once it does come on to the agenda it is something that it has enough information to it that it can be discussed at
059length in a board meeting so i would be okay with changing it from three to two if that is something that so can i amend my motion to let's continue the discussion first no you you would make an amendment yeah to i can amend my emotions that no someone make an amendment to make a motion to amend that part of the operating procedures then we would vote on that and then then speak up i can't hear you speak up please proper procedures are that we someone would make a motion to change that in the board operating procedures we would vote on that and a second would bring that to a vote we would vote on that and then we'd go back to the discussions of the board operating procedures so a motion and a second
060with the boat to change that is in order at this time so i rescind no no no no no no i don't know okay that that stays open this isn't in this okay this is within the one that you're talking about so you can make or i can i will make the motion that i would like to amend the current operating procedures that we're looking at from three or more members of the board of trustees to agree for a topic to when two members of the board of trustees so now with that amount motion out there we need a second to that motion second that motion okay so we have a motion and a second for that so all of those in favor of any discussion on that the only thing i would say is
061i mean i just need clarification as to what was wrong with just one why again and and and my question hasn't been answered either as to who who changed this policy i've asked that question a couple of times and so i'd like to know who who asked for this to change [Music] i think if the board member who came up with that would like to say that they came up with it then that's fine it was not me i'm i don't feel that i'm at liberty to to say so [Music] that's the motion out there is there any other discussion i just wanted to say with the two members i agree with the reasoning that at least you know you'll have a second so it it kind of streamlines the process and we're not wasting
062everyone's time with an agenda item that's just going to die after emotions been made that reasoning there makes sense to me final question just gonna ask this question one more time is um just would like to know why what the intent was of putting this on the agenda in the first place what the reason is behind it i think it's fair for the public to know that as well what the policy that we've changed yeah the new this is something that hasn't like we've said before hasn't been looked at since 2019 and something that when we came on was one of the first things they told us that they were going to be doing was looking at the policy the standard operating procedures because it's something supposed to be reviewed annually and because of covid
063it hadn't and so that was something that was going to be a priority this year i appreciate that it's still not answering my question as to the end of the ground behind why this was put on the agenda it's still not today the question we just felt that it was worthwhile to do there were people i was asked to do that it made sense i like the idea of the two so that you're going to have a second that's where we are you've worked on it for six months this is what i'm hearing sorry old hot six months call to order call the order call to order communism i swear to god okay i'm calling for a vote those in favor of the amendment raise your hand [Music] holy crap those against the amendment raise
064your hand and we have one abstention you're trying to get her off the boards what you're trying to do you know it you have some no i won't shut up no okay so now we have a motion on the floor to accept the operating procedures are there any other discussion or other amendments that would you'd like to have considered yes ma'am there's a one more that i would like to please um it's regarding the non-executive session items um it's inappropriate for a trustee to state an opinion on an upcoming issue that is scheduled for discussion at a board meeting i think some of the speakers touched on this as well how is the public supposed to know what's going to be at the next board meeting and whether they want to come and speak on
065it i think that again is stifling not only the trustee speech but i'm concerned about our voter speech i mean the voters are the very people who entrust us and vote for us to to carry out the best in them it's only fair that they have transparency and again i feel like this is cutting them out and what what is it that we're trying to hide from the voters where are you looking so i can understand page 17 at the bottom it's the last bullet point [Music] i think it's it's just it's not saying anyone can't say anything i think it's just talking about you know more of etiquette but it's something that should be discussed in the open meeting i think that's the way i'm reading it yeah if that's the case then i
066just want to clarify so that we're all aware including myself and so this is out in public and on tape that if we talk to people in the public about something that's going to be on the agenda that we think is important to them and let them know that maybe they'd like to come speak on that is there um corrective action taken against that is that doing something wrong if we are to let the people out in the public know about something that they may want to come and speak on that's public information anyway it's it's not so something's on the agenda we as a trustee are free to tell the people in the public hey this is coming up i think it's something you might be interested if you like please come and speak
067and there's no corrective action taken against a trustee for doing that is that do i understand that correctly i think once the agenda's public it's public information there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to say anything to anyone about it so asking voters to come and speak for an upcoming meeting on something that's on the agenda is not incorrect do you understand that correctly never had any problem with anyone doing anything like that before okay i just want to make sure that it's okay to talk to as a trustee right i think it'd be more like um to state an opinion on an upcoming issue as if you are trying to sway other people on the on the on the on the board you know that that would be you know if you does
068that make sense what i'm saying yeah i just want to be sure that when i'm talking to voters and there's something of pertinent information coming up no that i'm not going to be in trouble for saying hey this is coming up if you'd like to come and speak on behalf of this or against it just speak on it period absolutely you're welcome to come oh absolutely um melanie if you look this is under trustee communication with the media it has nothing to do with you speaking to anybody else what it really says is that it would be inappropriate for you to speak to the media with regard and it's the way i read it because it's under that heading the major heading of trustee communication with the media regarding the executive session regarding the non-executive
069session so i would interpret it not to have be anything related to what you're saying right but more specifically whether or not i am to speak to the media with regard to an upcoming agenda item if if if i look at it in that context and that is the context in which it's in the book okay thank you for the clarification so it's very specifically has to do with who communicates with the media or this board of trustees which is our president or the local district so it has nothing to do with limiting any of your uh personal actions with regard to upcoming board meetings i appreciate the clarification yes [Music] other questions and discussion okay we call your question again like what my my motion your emotions your emotions on the table all right
070second yes the motion and the second so now i'm going to call the question there's no more discussion are we good okay so the motion on the table right now is to agree to the operating procedures as has been amended yes okay so that we all understand what we're voting on so all those in favor raise your hand those opposed and you're going to abstain okay so the new operating procedures pass as amended that is the only thing that we have on the agenda for today so with no further business we will adjourn this meeting at 307 pm thank you