The ACS Board of Education meeting was called to order promptly at 6pm with President Brian Perkins presiding. Previous to the meeting when reviewing the agenda provided to all attendees including the public it became quite clear that this meeting was going to be quite different than all ACS Board of Education meetings that had come before it. The agenda, long referred to as simple the agenda, had been converted to a consent agenda.
What is a consent agenda you might ask? According to one administrator it is a "common" form of agenda used by school boards. According to the internet it is a tool that enables the board to group similar routine agenda items under an umbrella to be dealt with together. It allows the board to streamline the proceedings. So instead of being treated to the melodious tones of Brian Perkins reading out each agenda item in rapid succession, the board (and public) was given a glossing over of each grouping with a wholesale vote on each grouping of agenda items.
The fancy new consent agenda was broken out into lettered groups from A to N and it was awful*. Gone were the tidily numbered agenda items and brief agenda statements that we'd come to know and love. What would Anne Sherwood think?
After the shocking revelation of the change of the traditional agenda Superintendent Schuelien gave his report. He reported that there will be a lock in on Wednesday for grades 5-9 and that the Fine Arts Club will be hosting an evening of theatre this Friday. There was some discussion of the Fitness Center opening to the public once the monitor is approved and finger printing is completed. They'll announce that as soon as it is available in addition to potential open pool hours once the pool pumps are back in working order. It was revealed that diagnostic testing is for really real starting tomorrow. The county transitioning to the test to stay strategy for Covid-19 exposures was also discussed, but the district is waiting for further information from the county.
Results of the resent survey sent out to parents were showing 92 total responses at present with 16% of respondents saying they'd be interested in having their children vaccinated. Of the permission slips sent home for Covid-19 testing only 20 had come back so far. The Superintendent expressed that these numbers were lower than had been hoped. Dr. Schuelein also expressed his appreciation to the school nurse for organizing all the Covid stuff and to Ms. Slavinski for her efforts as well.
Brynne Hunt, class of 2022, gave an overview of the proposed senior trip to Boston Massachusetts. She stated that there was a lot of historical value in the trip and gave an agenda of activities that would be both fun and educational for the senior class. The trip would take place over 4 days with travel by bus and a 3 night hotel stay for the 18 students and 4 chaperones. She did an admirable job of condensing the 4 day long trip into a 2 minute synopsis.
The rest of the meeting was a blur of consent agendas that were grouped haphazardly with the minutes from the previous meeting not even being approved until "L" and all of the consent agendas were approved with only one discussion about the Fitness Center monitor and how many persons had been interested in the position.
*an opinion
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