West Bend Schools Getting Frustrated with Citizens’ Questions

I was not able to attend the West Bend School Board meeting last night, but Ginny did and was not pleased.

In both the policy-writing session and the school board meeting last night in West Bend, there were loud complaints of how the taxpayers have cost the school district $8,000. All because of their inquisition regarding the harassment policy.

The School Board also resented the “38 emails” sent by at least one taxpayer over the period of the last month. I happen to know that, when divided, those emails were sent to the “appropriate” sources, then turned over to someone else to handle, causing the email volume to double and triple. I also happen to know that many of those emails were simply one sentence, such as “Could you please clarify that as I don’t understand?” Many emails had to be reworded time and again to refine a search process a the School Board was bucking Open Records requests. You see, when taxpayers ask questions, it is not appreciated and it is made known publicly, such as in last night’s instance.

I guess I would rather see our district spend $8,000 now than HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars later in a law suit.

I have been copied on most of the correspondence referenced above and I can confirm that Ginny’s characterization is correct.  In essence, a citizen would request information, a school official would respond with clarification questions and such, the citizen would respond, and so it goes.  This is often how it goes when filing open records requests and didn’t seem oppressive to me.  It’s the school’s job to cooperate with such requests and they should welcome the public’s involvement. 

I’d be interested in hearing the comments being discussed here for myself.  Maybe I can catch the meeting on cable access. 

1. Two points i feel are important to get out.  One, Ginny did not attend the meeting last night.  Two, the reason that the dollar figure was brought up was to emphasize the point that the school board is doing its due diligence on this matter.  We have respectfully followed up with all requests on this matter and will continue to do so in the future.  It is also important to note that while open records requests are a right of the citizens of the district and the state, but they are not free.  They come at a cost.  The cost may be attorney fees to check legal issues, like the ones that Ginny brought up, or man hours that are used in the preparation of documents.  When the cost is prohibitive or a document that is requested does not directly exist the cost has to be picked up by someone.

   Again, I would like to emphasize.  We as a board and district believe that the open records law is a good thing.  We will continue to honor requests.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 15, 2008 at 1600 hrs




2. I find it strange that the West Bend school district administration brought up the issue of cost. I was at both the committee meeting and the regular school board meeting, and they brought up the issue of the lawyer fees and emails at both meetings. I did point out to them that at the June meeting (when the first policy was tabled) Kathy Zarling admitted that the district did not seek legal counsel and that they would need to do more research before moving forward on a harassment policy. (OOOPS)
   SO, she admitted back in June that they would need to seek legal counsel. It had nothing to do with Ginny’s requests/questions.

   As for the harassment policy itself, I have seen the PI9 code. It seems very clear that the district could forgo listing certain protected classes of people (and would do well in doing that), and list behaviors/actions that are not acceptable in school. That would have the result of including ALL students and not just SOME students. Certainly we all want that don’t we?
   The PI9 code gives authority to the school board to make their own policy. They need to do it. Aren’t they intelligent enough to do that? Are there no independent thinkers on the West Bend school board?

   Food for thought…........

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 16, 2008 at 2308 hrs




3. Just to clarify, Kris is right.  I was not at the meeting.  Two people represented me, however.  One was at the policy-writing committee meeting and another spoke on my behalf at the school board meeting. 

   I was given numerous notes on both meetings to keep me up to date.

   For the most part, the school board complied with the open records requests appropriately; however, I might note that there were some issues concerning certain requests that made it clear my questions were not welcome.  A simple call to the DPI gave me the information I requested from the board (that would have cost (me?) an outrageous sum of money) for FREE.

   Mentioning me by name numerous time and complaining to the general public says how the board REALLY feels about the requests, though stated otherwise.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 17, 2008 at 0711 hrs