The Brookings School District met tonight, and we got to hear more on a couple of topics that have been in the news lately. After noting that the District’s settlement agreement with the outgoing Superintendent Klint Willert would be available today during the last meeting, tonight they kicked the can down the road until tomorrow morning, noting they did not have it available tonight. Why? Because according to the board, they did not make copies.
Even though they are in a school building.. which I presume has a copy machine.
So allegedly, the release of the document detailing the Superintendent’s golden parachute to the public will be available at the School District’s offices at 10AM tomorrow.
The other big topic was regarding the district’s bungling on the accreditation process, with some commentary from a couple of the board members that left me wondering, because they not only admitted they did not know what was going on, in the same breath, one board member completely misstated the situation the district is in.
Board member Theresa Binkley offered commentary (About 1:25:00 in the attached video) ..
“The accreditation process is every five years, and so really, the majority of our board has never been through this process. And in spite of that it was never explained to us. We never heard about what the accreditation process entailed, it was never mentioned in any of the Superintendent board reports that we were going through accreditation this year. In January we got a brief update from one of our curriculum directors that they had met with the accreditation team.. both the curriculum directors and Dr. Willert on December 6th and they went over the findings, and that there were a few things that needed to be changed, and that they were to submit those changes by March 6th. And then, I didn’t hear anything else until earlier this month when we got the letter that said if we didn’t get things done by March 31st that we’d be on probation.”
“And so the most unfortunate thing and what I regret the most about this was how our community found out about it. This failure of communication to the board, um, led that our community found out about it through a sensationalized press release on-line. And that was wrong. And I apologize that due to our lack of communication within the board that our community had to go through that.”
Unfortunately, there’s some misinformation in that statement.
The letter that was sent by the state wasn’t that if the district didn’t get things done by March 31st that we’d be on probation. That was false. The district is on probation NOW. The letter was that if they don’t get things fixed by the end of March, the Brookings School District is going to lose their state aid to education. But don’t take my word for it. Read the letter from the State of South Dakota.
BSD Letter – accreditation … by Pat Powers
Consider the words in the letter that was written by Joe Graves, the Secretary of Education:
Now considered. Not “Will be considered.”
They can call it sensational as if it were Donald Trump calling something fake news, but the fact remains that the State of South Dakota had to go this far in compelling the district’s compliance but still some are treating it as if it’s unimportant.
It’s not unimportant. Coming this close to costing the district it’s state aid to education is a big deal. And those responsible deserve any grief they’re getting on it.
Although, in slightly better news, in the same meeting the board is claiming that things are back on track, and we should have the accreditation issues resolved in the next few days.
Whether that’s correct or not, I’m sure we’ll know soon enough.
And the Oscar for brave abdication of any responsibility for doing your job by an office holder goes to…..
Wow — just wow.
Perhaps the Brookings students should take note — they can use the board member’s words for when they forget to do an assignment or don’t like their grade.
District parents and patrons should demand that board members resign and a provisional board be sworn in until proper elections can be held. This is such a colossal failure by the board to fulfill its oversight and due diligence obligations. And Theresa Binkley’s comment reflects perfectly the board’s incompetence and cowardice.
I don’t think they should resign.
But by the same token, don’t stand up and tell us it’s stardust falling from the sky, when it’s actually a flock of pigeons overhead.
Did the Brookings School District violate any open meeting laws by not having the documents available? Or did they protect themselves by saying they only had one copy?
Saying they couldn’t hand it out because they only had one copy.. in a building with copy machines.. was just the worst. I doubt it violated any laws, but it’s not a good look.
I believe any documents presented in open session should be made available to the public during the meeting – and quite possibly posted on the district website. But, I am not an attorney – so take that with a grain of salt.