The Andover Central School Board of Education kicked off the first meeting of 2022 promptly at 6pm in the ACS Auditorium. President Brian Perkins was absent. VP Patrick Howland Jr. covered for Perkin's absence with style and panache.
The first thing noticed upon entering the auditorium, aside from the stunning purple and gold paint work on the architectural plaster work (which I believe was originally given its colorful detailing back at the turn of the century by Jason Padden), was that the board of Education got new name plates. These new name plates came with a delightful new seating arrangement. It remains to be seen if this new arrangement is permanent or due to several people being absent.
Dr. Schuelein gave his Superintendent's report which was almost entirely Covid-19 related. It turns out there have been many changes and updates to the recommendations at all levels, and this requires a lot of meetings. The main take-away here is that they're staying updated on the newest and ever-changing mandates and advisements, and the district is keeping students and families updated via email. Dr. Schuelein mentioned sending out one such email just previous to the meeting about the availability of at-home testing kits to send home with students if families would like them.
There were no public comments although there were 2 members of the public in attendance. There were also no presentations. There was also no board dialogue, although there were 3 items in the Board information packet that are available with the agenda that can be found online. Oh, what magically modern times we live in.
VP Howland did read all consent agenda items, which felt like the good old days before the consent agenda. All agenda items passed unanimously including cancelling the regularly scheduled January 24th Board Meeting, which was a huge bummer.
This meeting was a solid 8.5/10. I appreciated VP Howland covering all agenda items in detail. The new name plates were very snazzy. However, the meeting did only last 13 minutes which is 9 minutes under the ideal meeting length. It was also wickedly cold outside, and the parking lot was full due to a sportsball game that appeared to be super well attended leading to a not amazing walk from the far reaches of the tundra/parking lot.
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