Ann Arbor Board of Education President Deb Mexicotte will present two new policies Wednesday that could prevent trustees from meeting until 3 a.m.
School board president Deb Mexicotte
Long-winded and in-depth board discussions; lengthy data presentations from administration; and increasing input from public commenters and associations such as the Ann Arbor Education Association, the Parent Advisory Committee for Special Education and others have contributed to the early morning end times. The board's committee of the whole structure also has been targeted in the past as a possible reason.
The school board's Feb. 27 meeting adjourned at nearly 3:15 a.m. And often, the board does not get to the action items on its agenda until approximately the last two hours of the meeting.
Mexicotte announced at Wednesday's committee meeting her plans to bring forward for consideration at least two policies pertaining to board and time management and "how to go about best accomplishing our work."
She said her hope is the board can talk about ways to proceed with future board discussions, prioritizing issues and topics at the board table and the board's committee structure.
In the fall of 2011, the board changed its committee structure from a policy committee and a finance committee to a singular committee of the whole.
Mexicotte also plans to bring back the idea of passing a code of conduct or expectations, which she is calling an "affirmation of boardsmanship." This was last discussed in January as members talked about how to address its No. 1 board goal for the 2012-13 academic year: trust and relationship building among trustees.
Trustees decided in January not to hire a facilitator to conduct team-building or trust-building exercises with the board, which could have cost $8,000 or more, and Mexicotte suggested a code of conduct as an inexpensive option.
The board has discussed a variety of time management options in the past, such as limiting the number of minutes per agenda item, limiting the number of minutes or times a trustee can talk and limiting public comment. None of these options appealed to the majority of the board.
The meeting length issue was last raised in January 2012, following a 1:45 a.m. decision to grant raises to two of the district's top administrators. Questions had come up publically about the board's ability to function at that time. The board rejected infringing time limits during the 2012 discussion. But Mexicotte and other board members recently have expressed a renewed desire to consider some time management options.
Superintendent Patricia Green and her executive cabinet members usually also are required to stay through the end of the Board of Education meetings.
Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.