School Committee Formally Adopts Meeting Changes

The Melrose School Committee structure debate continues.

Following up on a lengthy discussion at its June 8 meeting, the committee tackled a laundry list of suggestions at its meeting on Tuesday night, approving some suggestions developed as part of a pilot program that started in February, while holding off on others for further discussion and work.

To facilitate the committee tackling the numerous items up for vote, Chairwoman Margaret Driscoll created a consent agenda — a list of items that can be approved by a single vote, with any committee member able to remove an item from the consent agenda for discussion — containing her recommendations based on the committee's discussion at its June 8 meeting. Items that stayed on the consent agenda and were approved without discussion:

• Seating: The superintendent will sit at the head of the table next to the committee chairwoman; subcommittee chairmen will take the chairwoman's seat at the head of the table for subcommittee business.
• Announcements: The committee will keep the new "Announcements of the Chair" agenda item, in addition to the regular "Announcements of the Superintendent."
• Consent Agenda: The committee will keep using a consent agenda for items such as minutes of previous meetings and the monthly cafeteria report.
• Subcommittees: Subcommittees will remain as-is, with a chairman and vice chairman and every committee member effectively serving on every subcommittee.
• Minutes: The level of detail will adhere to the requirements set forth in the state's new Open Meeting Law effective July 1.
• Delivery of Packet Materials: Both the method and timing will adhere to the requirements set forth in the state's new Open Meeting Law effective July 1.

Items concerning the frequency of committee meetings; the informal public dialogue piloted before each meeting; the public comment portion of each meeting; and the number of votes required for each item were each pulled off the consent agenda, although initially committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis asked that every single item be removed from the consent agenda for further discussion, noting that some of the suggestions up for a vote were not discussed at the committee's June 8 meeting.

"I had no idea this was going to be put together in a consent agenda and I'm not comfortable with that," Kourkoumelis said. "Some of these things were fabricated somewhere else other than public sessions. Some of these things we never discussed, so we need to discuss them and vote individually (on each item)."

Driscoll pointed out that at the top of the worksheet provided to committee members in their packets in advance of the meeting, it states that a consent agenda would be formed and committee members were invited to remove items from the consent agenda for further discussion. The worksheet also stated that Driscoll would evaluate the topics before the committee and make recommendations based on the discussion at the committee's June 8 meeting.

After committee members Don Constantine and J.D. LaRock asked Kourkoumelis if there were specific items she'd like to discuss further, the committee ultimately pulled those items off, although Kourkoumelis stated, "It's not my preference, but I will go with that."

More special meetings more often on in-depth topics

The committee will continue to adhere to its current meeting schedule, but use the opportunity to hold special meetings, which can be held elsewhere other than the Aldermanic Chamber at City Hall, on particular topics, after the committee voted 6-1 in favor.

Kourkoumelis, the lone 'no' vote, said that she realized that at the last meeting the committee's general consensus was to continue the current meeting schedule while utilizing more special meetings. However, she reiterated her idea to hold weekly meetings, with subcommittee meetings every other week, and raised the issue, as she did earlier this month, about the subcommittee chairman and vice chairman working on items outside public meetings and bringing that work to the full committee.

"We've had many, many people come forward, I've spoken to many people and I know others have spoken to many, many have complained that our meeting structure simply isn't working," she said. "That our meetings, we're not having the kind of dialogue that some members would like to have ... our meetings are just dragging on and on and on. There was worry that going to (meetings) every week would be adding an additional burden. I would propose that there are already so many meetings outside this chamber, if we limit those to what happens in this chamber, we won't be having more, which the public can see and are fully in compliance with the Open Meeting Law." 

LaRock said he was "sympathetic" to Kourkoumelis' concerns and had gone back and forth on the issue, but said that "in fairness," the committee has not fully tried out the option of holding additional special meetings throughout the year. He added that while he agreed School Committee meetings often run "way too long" and fail to delve deep enough into the details one some topics, he isn't fond of meeting every Tuesday.

"Let's really do use it (special meetings) to its full extent, see how that works and maybe abate some of the concerns that are going on," he said. "I think it's worth a shot at trying. I support what's here on the proposal."

Committee member Christine Casatelli added that the committee should begin planning now for special meetings the members know they'd like to hold and publicize those meetings in advance "to get members of the public to come forward and share views with us" in order to take full of advantage of those meetings.

Public dialogue sessions to continue, exploring possibility of changes

The committee will continue to hold informal public dialogue sessions starting at 6:15 p.m. before every meeting and revisit the topic in September, after committee members wrangled over the frequency of those sessions and how to compile and use the comments offered by the public in those sessions.

Driscoll had recommended changing the name to "Office Hours" to reflect "common parlance," equating those sessions with office hours held by elected state officials to meet and hear from the public; holding those sessions 4-6 times a year before meetings that historically generate the greatest public interest; require commitments from two committee members to attend; and that the comments gathered in those sessions be forwarded to the superintendent, rather than reported out in the subsequent committee meeting, to remove the "burden of real-time filtering."

Kourkoumelis took umbrage with the suggested name change to "Office Hours" and limiting the sessions to 4-6 times per year because those suggestions had not come up at the June 8 meeting. She said that the consensus "widely felt throughout the chamber" at that meeting was that the public dialogue sessions before each meeting were something simple that the committee could offer the public.

"I see no reason why the committee members can't report back directly (in the meeting), I don't see they need to be filtered or anything through superintendent," she said. "The public already has plenty of ways to communicate with the superintendent ... limiting it to 4-6 times a year is not something we had decided as a group that we were going to do."

Committee member Kristin Thorp said "I don't care what it's called" and noted that when the idea for the public dialogue sessions was first brought forth by Kourkoumelis, the committee discussed holding those sessions once a month. She offered that holding the sparsely attended sessions less frequently could possibly generate more attendance.

Thorp added that there were many ways for the public to communicate with committee members — whether through phone calls, e-mails or face-to-face at ballparks and other places out in the city — and that the public dialogue sessions should not be treated any differently than those communications.

"Every single person in this horseshoe talks to people in the public every day," she said. "We don't come to the School Committee and summarize everything that everyone tells us. We hand information to superintendent. I think that's the appropriate way to do this as well. I think that's very consistent with how we deal with other things."

Constantine offered that perhaps the committee could hold the public dialogue sessions once a month and each member could commit to a rotation that would result in each member attending two sessions a year. He said perhaps holding the regular sessions will encourage people who are uncomfortable speaking on camera, during meetings, to share their thoughts with the committee members.

Also, Constantine stated his preference for the committee member present during the public dialogue session to provide a quick summation to the committee during the subsequent meeting, humorously using the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to illustrate his point.

"What I fear is if it's just bundled up and passed off to the superintendent, people will have the perception it's like the final scene in Indiana Jones, when the Ark of the Covenant gets boxed up," he said.

That drew a chuckle from Superintendent Joe Casey, who joked, "We have it in a safe place."

LaRock said that Constantine had "very interesting suggestions" and said that on the one hand, he's in favor of expanding opportunities for public interaction, but on the other hand the public dialogue sessions have not had much attendance. He said the committee could opt to continue giving the sessions a chance and offered that perhaps the committee members could hold those session at schools at different times to reach more of the public.

Thorp later withdrew her motion to pass the recommendations before the committee.

"I think that clearly we have discussion needed in this area," she said, adding that regarding the suggestions made, "I can't envision yet what that would look like, but I'm certainly interested."

Public Comment

The committee unanimously voted to continue the public comment session at the beginning and end of every meeting as is, with the ability of committee members to ask questions of those members of the public who do speak, although Thorp and LaRock would work on further amending the committee's public comment policy.

LaRock said public comment is the one area where he continues to feel strongly about the committee seeking creative ways to encourage a two-way dialogue, acknowledging that there are pros and cons to that approach.

"I think part of showing the public that we are responsive and interested in what they have to say can occasionally involve some two-way communication," he said, "balanced by not allowing what is essentially a business meeting be taken over by the public comment period."

Thorp added she had spoken with LaRock earlier about the possibility of tweaking the committee's policies and that "I told him I'd be happy to work with him over the summer to see what those options might be."

Mayor Rob Dolan said his only concern is that he has never served on a committee of any form that allowed the public to comment on items not on the meeting agenda for the evening, reiterating Thorp's earlier point during the public dialogue session debate about hearing from the public through phone calls, e-mails and out in the city.

"A business meeting should be based on things on the agenda strictly," he said. "It  shouldn't be open ended. I don't think that takes away from public's ability to comment. I think it's proper business practice."

Kourkoumelis said the issue goes back to policies regarding public comment and placing an item on the agenda adopted by the committee last fall, which she said are "problematic" need to be revisited.

The public comment policy allows each member of the public a minimum of three minutes to speak within the 20-minute public comment session at the start of the meeting and the 10-minute public comment session at the end of the meeting. The public comment time limits have not been enforced at recent committee meetings; at Tuesday's meeting, for example, three members of the public spoke for an approximate total of 45 minutes at the start of the meeting.

The agenda item policy allows anyone, committee member or otherwise, to submit in writing four business days in advance of a committee meeting a request to place an item on the agenda for discussion, with the committee chairwoman or subcommittee chairman making the final decision as to whether to include the item on the agenda.

The current School Committee policy states that "public participation is not a discussion, debate, or dialogue between members of the public and the Committee. Members of the public who desire the Committee to discuss or debate a particular item or issue should request an agenda item in accordance with applicable policy and/or bylaws of the Committee."

Kourkoumelis said she had problems placing an item on the agenda as a committee member.

"The system isn't working, and therefore that's part of where it's disingenuous to say that you can have an item put on agenda and therefore not discussed in public participation," she said. "We are place of last resort and if we start closing the door to those people, we're going to have more problems. The restrictive policies, if we adhere to those instead of fix and change them, then I think we have even bigger problems. I think it all ties together and the whole dysfunction ties together and we need to take an honest look at what's really wrong here."

LaRock thanked Thorp for offering to work with him on the committee's policies over the summer and asked if the best course of action would be to table the public comment item. Thorp responded that she believed the committee could vote to adopt the item before them to at least institutionalize the two separate public comment periods at the beginning and end of each meeting, before moving on to work on the policies.