Also, at the Jan. 10 meeting, the board received workshop on its interaction with the public in meetings.
At the Jan. 10 meeting, three members, including two incumbents, Francine Viscome and Lisa Asare, and one new electee, Jocelyn Lewis, were sworn into the Berlin Borough School District’s board of education.
Viscome, who received 933 votes in November’s election, was originally elected in 2005, and Asare, who received 847 votes, was first elected in 2016.
The board chose Linda Welte to serve as board president and Rebecca Holland as vice president.
“I would like to thank the members of the board for their confidence and support,” Welte said. “I will certainly do my best to represent the board and the (president) chair. Thank you very much.”
At the reorganization meeting, the board participated in a New Jersey School Board Associates Workshop regarding understanding and implementing parliamentary procedure.
A field service representative from the organization, Jesse Adams, Jr., presented a PowerPoint presentation, advising the members on “orderly board meetings from the perspective of parliamentary procedure,” which the board adopted as its approach to manage meetings.
Under the Open Public Meetings Act, the board is required to provide opportunities for “public comment” during meetings.
“It is not public debate,” Adams said. “Remember, your board meeting is the board’s business meeting. It’s a board business meeting held in public. … It’s not a public meeting.”
Adams stressed the point of public comment is to see the board “make the sausage,” but says it is not a meeting the public should run.
“There are boards that don’t follow that, and they get into debates with their public, and that’s never a winning argument,” Adams said. “One of the reasons that we tell boards be careful if you’re going to get into that dialogue with your public, because you can very quickly lose control of your meeting.”
According to the School Ethics Act, which the board passed in a resolution during the meeting, members must refer all complaints to the chief administrative officer, vowing to act on complaints at a public meeting only after failure of an administrative solution.
In this vein, Adams stressed that parents’ complaints must go through the “chain of command” process, meaning staff should try to resolve issues at the lowest level before climbing up to the superintendent’s desk.
“Putting that in writing is important, because dealing with the public here to try to answer their concerns and solve their problems is against the law, per the ethics act,” Adams said.
If parents are not content with the superintendent’s response, they can take the concern to the board, but the meeting, according to the the ethics act, can take action in a scheduled executive hearing where the board solicitor is present.
The final slide of the presentation advised board presidents to use their gavels as needed.
“I tell board presents all the time — don’t be afraid to use your gavel,” Adams said. “You use it to call the meeting to order. You use it to adjourn. Sometimes, you have a situation where you need to gavel the board members because they’re getting out of order or your public may be getting out of order.”
In other news:
• Dr. Shelly Wards Richards, the principal of Berlin Community School, gave a presentation about the school’s initiative for character education programs, including service learning projects, such as this year’s “Big Hero, Little Hero” program.
• Michael Ford and Michael Galeone gave a presentation on the educational technology and innovation activities being implemented in school. They hope that by the 2018–2019 school year, BCS will be considered a Future Ready School.
• The board approved the purchase and installation of a fence to separate the playground and community members’ yard for $9,007.
• The board approved the purchase of three outdoor basketball backboards, including rims and replacement cost to remove and install four new outdoor basketball backboards for $5,801.
• Eighth-grader Nathan Donnelly was given the Superintendent’s Award for November.
• Student of the month awards were given to fifth grader Brian Thiel, sixth grader Brynn Fitzpatrick, seventh grader Tanya Garneau and eighth grader Luke Santangelo.
• On Thursday, Jan. 18, BCS will host Ryan’s Story.
• On Wednesday, Jan. 24, BCS will host a Math/STEAM Night.
• The next BOE meeting is scheduled for Feb. 15 at 7 p.m.
