Angelica Ramos
Contributing Writer
MONTGOMERY COUNTY- The Montgomery County Education Association requested the school board allow them to speak regularly at school board meetings to provide updates, and the school board voted to approve that request at its Oct. 22 meeting.
The MCEA is an organization made up of teachers, administrators and other public school personnel. The MCEA filed a request with the Montgomery County School Board asking for permission to regularly speak at the meetings to provide updates and other information they deem necessary for the school board to have. The original ask from the MCEA was to be able to speak once a month for 10-15 minutes at a time.
The board members’ discussion regarding the request centered on frequency of presentations, wanting to hear from the MCEA, and concern that the school board meetings are already running too long. The consensus was that the board members did want to hear from the MCEA but the frequency of the ask for up to fifteen minutes once a month was the largest concern due to the run time of the meetings already.
“I do feel like our meetings are getting extremely long,” said Board Member Dana Partin said. “We have things going on before meetings and after meetings to where we have to get here earlier and go home later. I always welcome information and I care about our employees and our staff, or I wouldn’t be sitting in this seat, and our students. There are other ways to get the board information.”
Board members discussed potential options for frequency of these presentations like having them quarterly, bi-monthly or reducing the length of the presentations themselves. After discussion, the board settled on an agreement to approve the MCEA presenting every other month for a maximum of 15 minutes at a time.
“I could agree to bimonthly,” Board Member Penny Franklin said, “for up to 15 minutes, but I think it’s very important.”
The vote for the MCEA to present every other month for up to 15 minutes was unanimously approved because not only does it allow the presentations, it also allows the board some flexibility in terms of scheduling and controlling meeting length.
