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 One topic we at BVSDWatch.org have not brought up yet has been the way BVSD deals with public participation at their board meetings (which are twice a month). In a nutshell (and we may expand on this issue in the near future) we feel part of the community's frustration when dealing with BVSD and its' board is the fact that the public participation portion of the meeting is one-way, no dialogue can occur between the public speaker and board members or administrators. The Boulder city council can allow such an interaction (though officially it's "discouraged"), and we hope to talk to the BVSD board about this situation in the future to see if we can find a way to have a reasonable community dialogue at future board meetings. Now, on that note, at the last BVSD board meeting August 14th, the BVSD board members elected to remove the public participation portion of the meeting for the August 28th and September 25th meetings (maybe more, we'll check the minutes when they become available) to allow for work sessions to "... discuss the topics of Organization and Achievement." In such an opinionated and vocal community as Boulder Valley, we doubt this will go over very well. When BVSD speaks about respecting and desiring of community input from one side of their mouth, and at the same time shutting down a large part of that capability with the other side, this will just turn into another case of BVSD being its own worst enemy. (Sigh) Update: From Briggs Gamblin, the communications director at BVSD: "At request of Board President Helayne Jones and Superintendent Chris, please let BVSDWatch.org site visitors know the following: 1) There will be a public participation period at the beginning of tomorrow night’s (8/28/2007) meeting under the same rules as any regular meeting, and
2) Please remind people that because of the time required for the work session, tomorrow night’s meeting begins at 6:00 p.m. instead of 6:30 p.m."
Very interesting... I had a few questions:
Why would Boulder City Council have a say in how the BVSD board runs it's meetings? Would Broomfield, Longmont, Lafeyette, Louisville city councils have the same ability?
Any idea what the specific topics to be considered under "Organization and Achievement" are?
Appreciate this site! My question is to What the district responded with that there will be public participation for th 8/28 meeting - what about the rest of them or is this just a one time exception? I suggest BVSD stop talking out of both sides of it's mouth, do they want public input or not!? |
