Commentary: SB 02/19/2008
February 21, 2008 by admin
Filed under Education, Guest Writer: Field, M.R., Politics
(Des Moines, IA, Feb. 21, 2008) During the final few minutes of the February 19th school board meeting, the superintendent and six board members took explosive exception (again) with ongoing public comments and widely-distributed e-mails of the seventh board member. During the portion of the meeting set aside for the board to clarify what information it is requesting from district staff, Superintendent Dr. Nancy Sebring took the opportunity to say that she did not appreciate hearing a board member berate the district while driving to a meeting. When pressed for a name by one of the longer-serving board members, Sebring said it was Jon Narcisse.
There are many issues and a growing history involved in this and subsequent exchanges that took place at the meeting. For me, current internal bickering is less of a concern than the perpetual low voter turnout for school board elections.. Thus, I want to look at what I see as systemic problems.
Under Policy Governance as adopted by the school board in 2007, the school board included a rule its members are supposed to discuss their opinions in board meetings and not outside of them. As a constituent, I strongly disagree with this.
Also under Policy Governance, the purpose of the board is identified as the link between the district’s administration and the public. At the time the policy was adopted, I expressed my opinion that there was no mention of the board’s accountability to the public. In any school district, I see the superintendent as responsible to the public and to parents for educating our youth. However, s/he is accountable for her job only to the board. Similarly, board members are responsible towards the entire board but ultimately accountable to the public.
Jan Mickelson mentioned on his radio show today (AM 1040) that he had invited several board members to appear on his show, just as Narcisse has been a guest. Such an appearance would not contradict with duties to discuss issues within the context of a public meeting. Legislators at the state and federal levels manage to talk with the media all the time and still discuss issues in public meetings before voting.
With that said, I must agree that it is inappropriate for a board member to criticize the institution on which s/he serves as a routine matter of course. On the other hand, if there is a geographically-isolated portion of the population that feels its students’ needs are not being met, perhaps we should go to ward-based representation.
Another beneficial change would be to pay board members. Although elected to the board of directors for three-year terms, board members are expected to attend several board meetings each year and to perform numerous other tasks without payment. Compensation of $2,500 per year per director would not be much, only $17,500 in a district budget of approximately $375 million. Yet, it could pay for gas, baby sitting, and other potential impediments to serving.
M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa and covers DMPS school board meetings for AroundDesMoines.com. 
I disagree with the notion that it’s inappropriate for board members of a public institution to criticize the board they’re on. It is good for the public to know that the group has at least one frequent dissenter - it keeps us questioning whether the board is doing its work in our best interest.
Nancy Sebring keeps telling Narcisse, “Come to the board with your concerns.” But they do not listen to him when he tries to do just that. At his very first meeting, he complained that he did not have time to review a large document but was being asked to vote on it anyway - it may have been the budget. And they essentially told him, “too bad.” How many times did he insist that the graduation rate figures were inaccurate, only to have them brush him off? And how many times have they simply accepted figures that were given to them, without really studying them to look for signs of inaccuracy?
The board protests his criticisms because those criticisms are direct, and personal, and they hit too close to home. They are, also, often “over the line” of civility in public discourse. But, Narcisse takes those criticisms to the public because the board doesn’t seem to want to hear them. I encourage him to continue to do so, because I DO want to hear it.