In Your Corner

Your Taxpayers’ Association has been extremely unhappy with the animosity and childishness displayed at Martin County School Board meetings. We have tried for months to be relatively impartial, wanting to solve the situation rather than create more problems by taking sides. We have, however, disagreed with the School Board (SB) on a number of issues aimed at unnecessarily restricting the power of the Superintendent.

The MCTA has a Schools Committee, made up of members of our Board of Directors, which regularly meet with the Superintendent and her staff. We believe we understood the issues involved but, in an effort to hear all relevant positions, we invited the School Board Chairwoman to attend our August Board meeting. She was encouraged to make an opening statement and was then questioned for over an hour on a variety of issues by our Directors.

To her credit, she directly challenged many of our opinions and was honest and forthright in her answers. On most school policy and budget issues the SB appeared to hold reasonable positions and there was agreement between the Superintendent and the Chairwoman’s interpretation of those decisions. However, there is an admitted, ongoing effort to suppress open input from the Superintendent and limit her authority. Repeatedly cited was the fact that the SB is the “ultimate decision maker”; that there is an “agreement”; and that this agreement was made between “all parties” at a State level “board training” session. The School Board’s Attorney has recently upheld the concept.

This self-inflicted agreement was repeatedly questioned and challenged by our Directors who were in disbelief that such a policy would be advocated, much less enthusiastically enforced. Most of our Board have extensive management experience (resumes are at www.mctaxpayers.org/) that includes senior government and school officials, fortune 100 company executives and even teachers of the subject at university level. Our collective judgment was that this is a disruptive, destructive policy that proactively inhibits good management.

The Superintendent is an elected official that controls hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars and supervises over 2,500 employees. As the President/CEO of what amounts to a major corporation, not allowing her to advocate policies and procedures at a meeting of her “Board of Directors” is beyond stupid. The Superintendent is even being held silent while members of the public ridicule and accuse her and District staff of various offensives. At that point the practice becomes unconscionable as well as dim-witted.

According to the Chairwoman these accusations are indicative of real problems being brought forward by aggrieved former employees that are being given their “1st amendment rights”. Also, SB members have publicly indicated they are having difficulty getting data on these and other issues from the Superintendent. Hello! What better way to get answers from the Superintendent than by asking appropriate questions in an open televised meeting? Whatever the merits of the Board’s issues with the Superintendent, not allowing her to speak in such an open forum does NOTHING to help solve problems, explain positions, cure misconceptions, OR FACILITATE GOOD MANAGEMENT OF THE DISTRICT.

This policy also severely limits the ability of the public to analyze the issues since only the opinion of the Board, and those approved to speak at their televised meetings, are heard. (MCTV coverage is archived at www.martin.fl.us) The School Board seems to imply that the Superintendent is not being an effective asset manager and is making biased personnel decisions. What is being demonstrated, whether the accusations are true or not, is that a majority of the SB are biased, ineffective managers/leaders. Whether strictly legal or not, they need to change this policy - or they should be replaced by the voters.