Dummerston Leadership Council
Meeting Minutes from: September 19, 2024
In attendance: Maeve, Julianne, Carmen, Kim, Hannah, Jessica, Ellen, Lance, Rick, Lindsey GR, Robin Morgan, MIke Mrowicki, Megan A, Melissa, Wichie Artu, Emily
I. CALL TO ORDER—5:06pm — Chair – called to order at 5:01 and then worked out some tech issues.
II. OBJECTIVE: Review and discuss WSESD board members possible violations of open meeting laws, their code of ethics and district policy that may have impacted the Dummerston community.
III.
A. What is the goal? We talked about what our end goal is. Accountability and restorative. Board growth.
B. 1VSA- 310-314 Open meeting law. Under “public comment”, Board member had prepared statements, despite the topic not being on the agenda. Conversations and debate between the board, admin, leadership council members, and public ensued without warning or appropriate material on the topic for full review.
1. Discussion on what public comment is intended for.
2. Discussion on the harm of extensive discussion on a topic without public voice and appropriate representation of the issue. Acknowledge the result of that discussion influenced a changed outcome.
3. Acknowledged the desire of our school community to have been allowed the chance to participate had the item been warned.
4. Concluded there is indication of the conversation being out of order. LC additional concern: There needs to be better communication with the DLC, esp when it is a topic pertaining so directly to Dummerston school. Why wasn’t the DLC utilized for Dummerston school community discussion on a topic pertaining directly to our school?
C. C7-Board relations with Administrators.
1. Were appropriate reporting channels followed? Complaints bypassed process and went directly to the boardroom.
2. Was the need to maintain a distinction between the administrative role of the administrators and the policy making role of the board adhered? Board members inserted their personal stance and directly requested change at a school level.
D. G6 – Complaint about instructional material. – The complaint was started on Friday with Julianne as indicated. Julianne reached out to the teacher on their next work day, Tuesday.
1. Process for complaint was not followed. Complaint went straight to the Board and was taken up in the boardroom..
E. C3- Public participation at Board meetings
1. “The chair shall rule out of order any presentation to the board which breaches the privacy or other rights of students, parents or school employees, or which does not comply with Board policy on complaints.” The public should have been directed to policy.
F. B3- Board member Conflict of interest.
1.Indication that board members inserted their personal views outside their scope and process.
2. “A Board member will not give the impression that their position on any issue can be influenced by anything other than a fair presentation of all sides of the question” discussion taken up with request to implement changes outside process and without fair presentation of all sides presented”.
Requested by guest Wichie that discussion occur.
1. We reflected that it was adamantly stated that the request had been made 6 days ago and had not been complied with, that fact was repeated multiple times. The difficulties of public pressure and using ones position to create influence outside process. Pressing subordinates to comply despite having been addressed privately. Inserting subjective opinions that were not evidence based or with fair presentation from all sides.
G. Code of Ethics- Reviewed and agreed that no discussion was needed.Overall consensus that code of ethics were not adhered to.
IV. We discussed how to proceed;
A. Considered voting on policy violations… discussion ensued.
B. Decision was made that we only need a consensus that we believe policies and procedure were violated. The board had already identified possible relevant policies on their upcoming agenda.
It is the work of the board to interpret policy and not on us to make that call. We have reasonable evidence after review to warrant concern. Discussion considered Policy B2, Board self evaluation, as well as the Board’s meeting norms
C. We agree that harm was done. We agree that there are currently policies in place to prevent the harm that was done, and they were not followed. We agreed to write a letter to the board and request that they complete their own review with the goal of protecting future harm to any of our district school and to provide restorative support to move forward for our school community.
D. Other talking points:
1. What does restorative look like?
2. Who does review violations? Who is responsible for follow through if/when violations are found. What steps can be taken to prevent violation moving forward? First step is to hand it back to the board for self evaluation.
3. In the future any member of the community can/should go to the school principal. The board should redirect to the school principal.
Meeting adjourned at 6:58
