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The July 21 meeting of the Sudbury Public Schools School Committee featured multiple debates about packet materials and procedures. Before the meeting broadcast began, the school committee conducted a workshop on norms, protocols and procedures with Alicia Mallon, a field representative from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC). According to comments during the recorded portion of the meeting, it didn’t go well. By the end of the recorded business meeting, the committee was mummified in its own red tape.
Debate about packet materials cropped up during discussion about policies. As Chair Karyn Jones tried to move the committee towards a vote to send a Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) policy to legal counsel for review, member Nicole Burnard voiced a preference to have red-lined versions of each draft of the policy included in the meeting packets. Jones argued that this wasn’t standard practice historically, but that she would happily include redlined versions if that was the preference of the committee. (2:32:30)
Members struggled to agree on what was standard practice for the committee in prior years. While the debate appeared to be moot since Jones said she was willing to add the requested materials in future packets, it resurfaced several times during the meeting, and eventually became a discussion about whether or not their subcommittees should start posting their meeting packets online. (Historically they haven’t posted those packets online.)
A later discussion about an upcoming agenda item (at a future meeting) pertaining to the establishment of an LGBTQ+ Parent Advisory Council (PAC) went sideways when member Mandy Sim objected to Jones’ inclusion of draft language to establish such a PAC in the meeting packet when the committee had yet to discuss if they wanted to discuss such a PAC. It was unclear if Sim was objecting to the sequencing of discussion items or the materials in the packet. Vice Chair Jessica McCready tried to translate Sim’s objection, explaining to Jones that she felt the draft language may prematurely lead the committee in a certain direction on the matter. Sim and Burnard agreed with McCready’s characterization.
The committee had, at that point, swung from insisting upon having the chair put more materials in the packet, to potentially reversing their practice of not posting meeting packets from subcommittees, to limiting the inclusion of certain other materials in full committee packets.
“We will be discussing during the discussion item.”
But the debate about what’s included in the packet morphed into a debate about how any and all agenda items are brought to the committee and advanced through a series of meetings. Members Sim and Burnard appeared to be advocating for a process that included the following steps:
1 – Committee members propose future agenda items during a meeting, and the committee votes to discuss them in the future or not.
2 – If voted favorably, the item goes on a future agenda for the committee to discuss if this topic is a topic they want to discuss further.
3 – If the committee decides they want to work on that item or discuss it further, they can specify the next steps for further discussion during the discussion about whether or not to discuss the item in the first place. But this discussion should be limited to discussing if they want to discuss the item.
4 – At some future meeting they can then have discussions on the substance of the item.
4.1 – In the event the discussion item is a proposed policy, it would need to go through the following three policy adoption steps (Policy BGB, Page 87) once it goes through the first 4 (or more) discussion steps:
4.1.1 Information item – distribution with agenda
4.1.2 Discussion item – reading of the proposed policy or policies; response from Superintendent; report from any advisory committee assigned responsibility in the area; Committee discussion and directions for any redrafting
4.1.3 Action item – discussion, adoption or rejection.
If that sounds inane, here’s a real exchange from the meeting about an agenda item that was listed for a future meeting (3:23:30):
Member Sim: “So just to confirm. So just moving forward, for this in the future, will be a discussion first. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
Chair Jones: “So both of these were voted on at meetings to be talked about in the full committee for discussion. So we did that.”
Member Sim: “We didn’t discuss.”
Member Burnard: “We didn’t discuss.”
Chair Jones: “We discussed about discussing it.”
Member Sim: “Yes.”
Chair Jones: “And this is a discussion item.”
Member Sim: “Right. But we didn’t discuss.”
Chair Jones: “We will be discussing during the discussion item.”
With regard to the LGBTQ+ PAC, some members wanted to treat it like a policy, even though it’s not a policy according to Chair Jones. Discussion swirled around whether or not Mallon from MASC understood that the PAC was not a policy, then members appeared to apply advice from Mallon on policy development procedures to any item that may go before the committee.
Eventually the committee crash landed onto future agenda items, which is when members share new topics they would like to discuss in the future. Member Burnard voiced a desire for the committee to develop a procedure or process that would specify how members may bring items to the full committee. As described, it appeared that process would precede steps 1-4 above.
“I would like to discuss policy and have a very clear outline, step by step process, of how we’re bringing new agenda items to the school committee and how things are worked on from that point.” (3:36:30)
Chair Jones explained that they already had an item scheduled for a future meeting in which the committee would be tasking the policy subcommittee with which policies they wanted the subcommittee working on this year. Burnard responded that she wasn’t just talking about policy, but the “process of bringing new things to the school committee.”
Most boards and committees in Sudbury simply ask the chair to put a topic on a future agenda either via email, request form, or during a meeting, but under Burnard’s time as Chair last year, the school committee began voting on each and every future agenda item that members requested. As described by Burnard in the meeting, there would be a new process governing how members bring those future agenda items to the committee in the first place.
Vice Chair McCready then questioned if Burnard was adding even more steps than the committee really wanted. She tried to clarify that her focus was just on meeting packet materials. “I think there’s a disconnect between the meeting one where we say we’re going to talk about it and then at meeting two, which is our information step one, where we’re receiving too much information at the moment. So if we just stop receiving that too much information, I think we’re all going to be okay.”
