Observations and Comments on Board Meetings

Unfortunately, due to a technical error, only the last thirty minutes of this meeting were recorded.  The minutes  are available on BoardDocs and there were articles in the Kitsap Sun (April 22, 2021) and the Port Orchard Daily News (April 22, 2021) describing the more exciting events of the meeting.

Dr. Andy Rogers, Executive Director of Special Services, presented an overview of the planned summer school program.

The results of the District's ThoughtExchange survey conducted earlier in the month were discussed.

Each director was given ten minutes to discuss budget priorities.

Lee Fenton, Vice chairman of the Facilities Long-range Planning Advisory Committee reported on the activity of the committee.

A format was approved the the February 28 work/study meeting.

Director John Berg introduced a motion to appoint two investigating committees to consider possible censure of Director Jeff Daily.  The two committees  (Gattenby and Sebren on one, and Berg and Diehl on the other) were to work in parallel.  That motion was adopted.

(This action was in conformity with Board Policy GP-12 which provides for censure of a Board Member and Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (12th ed.) (RONR), which provides that the first step in a disciplinary procedure is the appointment of an investigating committee (RONR 63:7).)

 
Director Daily accused Director Berg of multiple violations and handed Board President Gattenby an envelope with charges.  This was in spite of the fact that RONR 63:11 specifically states that such action is out of order and an investigating committee must instead be appointed. See Daily Accuses Berg for more details.

The Board rejected Larry Mann's application to be appointed to the Facilities Committee.  Only Director Daily favored the appointment.

The Board approved a resolution of emergency waiver of high school graduation credits.

The Board approved a contract with the Aspen Group to provide professional development for the Board.

The Board also cancelled a public hearing scheduled for May 5th regarding opening union bargaining to the public, and to drop the matter for the present time.  The reason given by Director Berg was that the issue was still working its way through the courts in Washington State and currently neither the District nor the union can insist on or to refuse to bargain publicly without committing an unfair labor practice.

Director Berg moved in increase the minimum fund balance from 5% to 8%, but the motion failed. The minimum fund balance is similar to a family having a minimum amount of money on hand to meet ups an downs in family finances.  

This was a special work/study meeting presided over by Vice President John Berg in the absence of President Gattenby.  The purpose of the meeting was to discuss in more detail areas of focus and budget priorities for the 2021-2022 school year.

A brief executive session was also held to consider the possible acquisition of real estate.

Superintendent Winter presented "Target for Success" with achievement data from around the state.  The Board voted to select Math as a primary focus  with a goal of 75% of the students meeting standard by 2025.

The OSPI Academic & Student Well-being Recovery Plan was discussed.

The Board Referral Form regarding possible censure of Director Daily adopted at the previous meeting was amended to strike the two investigating committees and replace that with "utilize the risk pool asset to look into the matter".

The Board decided to invite the two applicants for School Board Student Representative make presentations to the Board at its next meeting.

Two applicants for School Board Student Representative made presentations to the Board and the Board selected both to be student representatives for the coming year.

The Wellness portion of the Priority Plan Focus was discussed.

The Information Technology Services Department reported.

There was a brief Executive Session to discuss Director Berg's response to charges made against him.  Following the Executive Session the Board took final action dismissing the charges with the following motion:

After reviewing Director Berg's response to the allegations presented against him at the April 21, 2021 Board meeting by Director Daily, the Board finds that Director Daily's accusations against Director Berg are baseless, without merit, and dilatory, and directs the Board President to expend no more time or effort by himself or others in further investigation of the allegations against Director Berg.

The OSPI's Academic & Student Well-being Recovery Plan was discussed.

Director Berg presented a proposed Governance Policy GP-14 addressing Community Engagement and Linkages.  It was referred to the training session with the Aspen Group on June 25th.

Director Daily attempted to make accusations against Directors Gattenby and Sebren by delivering  envelopes with charges to the Board President, but his actions were ruled out of order and no further action was taken on them.  Director Daily has subsequently made his charges public on the Internet.

Director Sebren was out of town and did not attend the meeting.

Public Comment raised concerns about Critical Race Theory (CRT) being taught in the schools.  CRT was also discussed later during Board discussion and will be further discussed to a greater extent at the June 16th meeting.  Director Berg will prepare a resolution on the issue for discussion.

Some agenda items were postponed to the next or a later meeting, such as the OSPI's Special Education Program Review, the School Improvement Plans for Discovery Alternative High School and Explorer Academy School.

Directors Gattenby and Berg were appointed to prepare a resolution for the July  meeting recognizing those who have endured and worked so hard the past 15 months.

The minutes of the Instructional Materials Committee Minutes were approved, together with approving those instructional and curriculum materials recommended by the committee.  Director Daily was the only negative vote.

A new proposed policy on Social Emotional Climate had its first reading and will be scheduled for final approval at the June 16th meeting.

Director Daily abstained on the approval of Operational Expectation 15 - Technology, and on the motion to award a contract for fire alarm wiring at the High School.

In order to allow more room for visitors in person at the School Board meetings, the meeting was relocated to the SK High School theatre.

The public comment portion of the meeting lasted nearly an hour with mixed comments for and against Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the impact of recently passed Senate Bill 5044.  Director Berg introduced a resolution addressing CRT.  It failed by a vote of 2-3.

Director Daily introduced a Board Referral form addressing the Instructional Materials Committee (IMC).  It failed on a vote of 1-4.

The School Improvement Plans for Discovery Alternative High School and Explorer Academy School were approved.

The Executive Session to discuss the performance of Superintendent, and, consideration of an extension of his contract for another year, were postponed to June 25th, and July 21st respectively.

This was a special work/study meeting from Noon to 4:45 p.m. with training provided by Aspen Group International.  

The work/study meeting was preceded by an Executive Session meeting at 11:00 a.m. to evaluate the Superintendent.

All of the candidates for the two upcoming School Board vacancies were invited to participate in this training workshop.  Only Brian Pickard attended.

This was the only meeting in July.  It was held in the SK High School library.  Subsequent meetings will be held at the District offices.

Board Vice President John Berg presided in the absence of Eric Gattenby, Board President.

The two new Student Representatives began their service with the Board for the 2021-2022 year.  Jesse LaCross-Lambert was sworn in and Kai Wilson, who was only present via Zoom, will be sworn in when he attends in person.

A public hearing was conducted on the proposed budget for the 2021-2022 school year.

Superintendent Winter's contract for another year (changing the end date from 2023 to 2024)  was approved..

A revised set of 12 Operational Expectation policies developed at the June 25th work/study was approved to replace the the previous Executive Limitation Policies 1-15.  EL-16 on Equity, which was first adopted last Spring, was retained as OE-13.

The Board Calendar for the 2021-2022 year was approved.

A motion by Director Daily to recognize and pursue the complaints he made against Directors Gattenby and Sebren at the May 19 meeting was defeated.  See Daily Accused Gattenby and Sebren for more information.  Director Daily subsequently appealed to the Kitsap County Superior Court the Board decision to defeat his motion.

This meeting was held at 5:00 p.m. in the in the Board room at the District Office.  It was decided to continue to hold regular meetings at 5:00 p.m. instead of 6:00 p.m. and the applicable policy was amended.  An additional public comment period will be held at the end of each meeting.

Kai Wilson was sworn in as a School Board Student Representative.

The 2021-2022 District Budget was adopted by a vote of 4-1, 

The report on Capital projects focused on progress on the pool  The renovations will take longer and cost more than originally projected.  Director Daily's motion to suspend the work on the pool until additional funding sources are identified was defeated 1-4. See Promises Made - Promises Kept for more information.

Additional guidelines from the State on reopening school were presented.

Director Berg presided in the absence of board president Gattenby.

Public Comment was scheduled for both the beginning and the end of the meeting.  Much of the public comment centered on opposition to the State requiring masks of all faculty and students.

The Facilities Long-Range Planning Advisory Committee presented its quarterly report.  

Reports on Summer School and back to school protocols will be discussed. 

Upon a motion from Director Daily, the Board voted to inquire of its legal counsel regarding the feasibility of challenging the State's mask mandate. 

Proposed Revisions to Policy 6220 on bid requirements was discussed.

There followed a number of emails concerning the large crowd of guests, many of whom where carrying anti-mask signs and some who were unmasked, and the disruption to the meeting by occasional outbursts from the audience.  Because of the volatile situation, the chair choose not to escalate the tensions by attempting to come down hard of the crowd's behavior.

This was another work/study meeting with training provided by Aspen Group International.  It was held via Zoom and available to the public. (Only one member of the public watched it live, but others could have viewed the recording later.) 

The Board worked on revising its agenda format.  It also revised the overall Mission and Results statements for the District, which will be on a future Board agenda for approval.

This meeting was held at the District Office and all participants were required to wear masks.  The Board utilized a revised agenda developed at the previous work/study meeting and the meeting ended about an hour earlier than most previous meetings.  The revised agenda has only one Public Comment period about 45 minutes into the meeting, rather than one at the beginning and again at the end.

The Board adopted revised Results policies drafted at the previous work/study meeting.

During consideration of the Consent Agenda, Director Daily requested to have his "letter of non-concurrence" entered into the minutes, apparently under the mis-conception that the consent agenda was undebatable.  Director Berg objected to having a document entered into the minutes that the Board has neither seen nor heard.  Director Daily then read his objections specific items on the consent agenda.  The Board did not order his remarks entered into the minutes and the consent agenda was adopted 4-1. (Typically minutes are to include what was done and not what was said at a meeting.)  The 8-minute exchange is available on the video of the meeting at 55:30.

The meeting was scheduled for the District offices.  An anti-mask rally was planned for 3:30 p.m. on the corner of Bethel and Lund.  All of the visitor seats were occupied in the board room and everyone in the building was required to be masked.  Signs were posted at the entrance and District security personnel were on hand to remind visitors to mask.

Directors Gattenby and Sebren were absent, leaving only Directors Berg, Diehl, and Daily to constitute a quorum.  Vice President Berg presided.

About twenty minutes into the meeting, and before the public comment portion of the agenda (scheduled for 6:00 pm.), some visitors entered room without wearing masks.  They were asked by the Chair to mask or leave.  One unmasked individual challenged the Chair and addressed the Board.  He was again told to mask or leave.  The meeting recessed to restore order.  When Superintendent Winter and Director Diehl left the room, the meeting was adjourned for lack of a quorum.

Because of the disruption and adjournment, none of the other visitors had the opportunity to address the Board.

This is a special Board meeting held by Zoom to decide if the regular meeting of October 6, 2021 will be held via Zoom or in-person.  Vice President Berg presided. It was decided that all future Board meetings would be 100% Zoom until the Board decided otherwise.

This meeting was held 100% by Zoom, without any physical gathering.  All public comment was through Zoom and participants needed to register to speak by Noon the day of the meeting.

Board Vice President Berg presided as acting president.

Because some of the presentations ran over the allotted time, and there were additional questions and debate on various issues, the meeting ran well over the planned time and adjourned at 8:30 p.m. rather than 7:00 p.m.

The  timeline for replacing the vacant board position was approved with the final appointment to be made December 15, 2021, after the new directors selected in November have taken office..

Many items originally scheduled were postponed until the next meeting.  These included (1) Comment on the Superintendent's compliance on Operational Expectation 1; (2) Election of a new board president; (3) Revision of Operational Expectation 10 - Learning Environment/Student Discipline; and (4) Approval of the 2021-2022 Annual Work Plan Calendar.

At one point in the meeting, a motion was adopted by three of the four directors present to end debate on the current agenda item.  A motion to end debate (aka moving the Previous Question) is undebatable.  Director Daily continued to protest the ending of debate even after the motion to end debate was adopted and would not be silent on the matter when directed by the chair to be silent.  The chair informed him that his microphone would be muted it he was not silent.  He challenged the chair's authority to do so, which was in effect appealing the ruling of the chair.  Appeals on matters of decorum (proper behavior during a meeting) are not debatable.  The remaining three directors then voted to have his microphone muted.  He was muted until the vote on that agenda item was completed (although he was not prevented from voting when the vote was taken by a show of hands).  His microphone was then unmuted for the remainder of the meeting.  The incident lasted about three minutes and can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/625563919 beginning at timepoint 3:04:00.

This was a work/study meeting with the Aspen Group to provide additional training in Coherent Governance for the Board.  Revision of the Board's governing policies was considered.  No final action was taken at this meeting.

This meeting agenda included items postponed from the October 6th meeting. See also the full video of the meeting.

Director Berg was elected Board President to serve Director Gattenby's unexpired term until December 1, 2021.   Director Daily originally moved to strike the election from the agenda, which would leave Director Berg, the vice president, as the acting president until December when the new Board elects officers.  Director Berg pointed out that the Board's policy requires that vacancies in Board officers  be filled immediately.  He also pointed out that a delay would leave the Board without an acting vice president while he continued to serve as acting president.  Director Daily's motion to strike the election from the agenda lost with a tie vote 2-2.  

Before the actual vote on electing Director Berg 3-1, Director Daily spoke against Director Berg's qualifications.  Those remarks and Director Berg's comments are found elsewhere on this website.  Director Diehl was elected Vice-President. 

The Board adopted the following motion:  

Inasmuch as the August 3, 2021 report regarding Director Daily prepared in response to the Board action of April 21, 2021 has been reviewed by the Board members and has now been made available to the public, the Board deems that no further Board action need be taken on the matter.

Director Daily spoke against the above motion, stating that it was illegal to take such action while there was litigation pending on the matter.  Directors Diehl and Berg both stated that the District's legal counsel approved of the motion.  (Director Daily's position would be analogous to a situation in which you were sued by a neighbor to lower the height of your fence and you choose to lower the fence before the lawsuit was even assigned to a judge.  How would that be illegal?)

The Board moved to take additional applications for the Long-range Facilities Planning Advisory Committee until November 30, 2021 which will allow the new Board in December to reappoint those members with terms expiring, replace them or add more members to the committee.  Those serving on the committee with terms expiring would not need to reapply to be reappointed.

The Operational Expectation Policy (OE-10) on Learning Environment/Student Discipline was amended to add that the Superintendent will "promote a learning environment committed to the equal dignity and natural rights of all people, with all having equitable opportunity to succeed in their personal lives and in the community as a whole" and the Superintendent may not "permit any activities or teachings that create a learning environment in which individuals are judged by their race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, or life circumstances rather than by the content of their character".  Click here to see the full policy as amended.

The Board considered revised Governance Policies and  Board / Superintendent Relations Policies developed at October 8th workshop.  The matter was postponed until the next meeting.  Financial Planning policies were also discussed.  A fuller discussion of the more contentious portion of the meeting can be found here.

Director Daily's motion to have the Board return to in-person meetings failed 1-3.

This was the last regular meeting of the Board before the terms of Directors Diehl and Sebren expire.  The Physical Facilities Advisory Committee reported. The Board certified tax levies for collection in 2022 as  previously approved by the voters.

During the agenda approval process at the beginning of the meeting, Director Daily moved to remove item 5.01 from the agenda, which was a report on the financial planning policy OE-5.  He stated, "I think that needs to be done with the next Board.  There is no rush to do this, so next Board needs to get on, especially since it deals with financial issues."  Director Diehl spoke against striking the item, after which Director Daily continued:

"Ok.   I don’t really think this is a good idea. I don’t want to bring this up, so, folks, I have said this last meeting and I’ll say it again, this is all tied up in litigation. Mr. Berg has/is being served papers regarding a personal lawsuit, and an injunction that involves his interaction with the Board. Mr. Berg votes on these items. When they pass a temporary restraining order will go into effect and it is possible the item will be tied up for the duration of the lawsuit, which may take months. OK. It will cripple the Board’s ability to act as your actions may be construed by the courts as a violation of the court order. For this reason, I recommend that Mr. Berg submit his resignation from the Board as soon as possible, as he may be restricted in what he can say at Board meetings."

(The lawsuit referred to, Jeffrey Daily v. South Kitsap School Board [1], does not deal with District financial matters.)