You may have heard of the four-hour work week, but since January in Lakota we have the four-hour board meeting. You may have seen the petition going around to censure Darbi Boddy. One of the reasons the meetings take so long is in large part due to her behavior during the meetings. If a vote doesn’t go her way, she will bring it up at the next meeting, and then the meeting after that, and the meeting after that. For an example see the continuing saga of her COVID Resolution.
Once a vote has been taken the will of the board needs to be accepted and you move on. This meeting saw a spotlight on Lakota’s nurses, student spotlight on the Lakota Spark, and an informative presentation from Lakota Special Services that had been long promised. The bulk of it was taken up in the policy portion of the meeting and with some agenda items towards that end that did some routine delegation to the superintendent that Mrs. Boddy seemed deeply offended by. She compared herself to a general and did not want to cede one ounce of power.
Since a new board meeting is only a few days away, here are the highlights from the policy portion of the meeting, which starts here in the video.
- Public Record Policy: These changes were discussed and ended up being voted and approved exactly as they had been written going into the second read. (For those unfamiliar, the assistant superintendent, will generate the second read to be voted on based on what the majority of the board had agreed to in conversation during the first read, and any other unanimous changes that seem to occur during a policy meeting or come in from legal.) This did not stop Mrs. Boddy from attempting to make an amendment on every disagreement that she had originally voiced during the last board meeting on this policy.
- Curriculum Policy: Many accusations were laid down by Mrs. Boddy against the superintendent yet again on CRT. Mrs. Boddy tried again to make amendments for each one of her individual policy disagreements compared with what was laid out in the second read. Luckily, the board had Jenni Logan to guide them through Robert’s Rules of order and all of the amendments. Even Mrs. Logan was thrown off when Darbi called for a “re-vote” after she accidentally voted that she would be required to go through the superintendent to access classroom curriculum and materials and could not do so in an unduly onerous way. “Takesy Backsies” don’t appear in the official Robert’s Rules of Order, apparently. The big change here: wording was added so that the “curriculum” as defined in board policy now requires upfront approval by the board. Luckily, the definition of “curriculum” was left alone so hopefully, this won’t be terrible. During the board meeting on February 14th, Mrs. O’Connor suggested that the board expand the definition of curriculum to include “surveys, questionnaires, textbooks, workbooks, software, video and other instructional materials being used by the district” per Ohio Revised Code. This board was presented with 6 bullet point options from NEOLA that could be considered as options for the curriculum definition, some of which included those items, but curiously chose to remain with the original definition. Perhaps, the 35 or so teachers that showed up to the board meeting, many needing to sit on the floor due to lack of chairs, had something to do with that change of heart.
- Mask Policy: Mr. Miller and even Mrs. Boddy agreed this policy was confusing and contradictory. Mr. Miller challenged that the board could do better. What did they do? Isaac Adi chose to add “As of March 29, 2022, the Board of Education does not mandate wearing facial coverings. Parents/legal guardians may make that determination for their students.” and to make it even more contradictory. Mr. Adi, Mrs. O’Connor, and Mrs. Boddy all voted for this addition, which seemed to make more of a political statement than effective policy.
Full board meeting is available below from Lakota: