The Disgruntled Republican in Nashville: What happened at the 4/10/2012 School Board meeting: Not much, and budget hearings.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

What happened at the 4/10/2012 School Board meeting: Not much, and budget hearings.

Unless you are a political junkie like me, you really do not want to watch a meeting of the School Board. They are BORING! School Board meetings however are actually less boring than Council meetings. More opinions are expressed and the meetings are less tightly scripted and controlled. The School Board, unlike Metro Council allows for public participation at each meeting. You can get your School Board agenda here.

Below is a summary of the meeting.

Jim Buckley a spokesman for the steel Workers union addresses the Board (2:39)and thanks the board for the proposed 2% pay increase for transportation workers and asks that the pay increase be distributed on a "weighted average hourly basis."

Doug Collier of the SEIU local 205 addresses the board (4:40) and proposes dividing the amount of money available for pay increases equally between all employees as opposed to allocating the available money by giving percentage increases.

Representative Mike Turner expresses his concern (7:00) that the School Board has allied itself with the forces that are allied with "charter School people" and the "voucher school people" and the "virtual School people" rather than "traditional school people." Turner gets a round of applause.

Representative Mike Stewart (9:17) criticizes the Board for the MNPS's failure to enter into a MOU with the unions and says nothing the State Legislature did had anything to do with the relationship between the School Board and the SEIU. He gets applause.

Lisa Johnson a parent of a student at John Early School takes the administration to task (12:58) for classifying the school as a "innovative zone" school. She ask the principal not be transferred saying the school has made a 40% improvement. "We have seen the progress," she says. She says the parents never did get answers to the question they asked.

Stephen Henry, (15:28) President of the MNEA expresses support for the $722.4 million budget and explains what is good about the proposed budget.

If you want to even see more about the school board budget then here is the meeting of 3/20/2012 which is a public hearing on the MNPS operating budget. It is less than 9 minutes long and only two people speak.