July I-SS Board Meeting

I attended the I-SS board meeting on Monday evening. The Board Highlights available on the I-SS web site give a good summary of the meeting. You can click on the link below to access the Highlights.

July Board of Education Highlights Now Available

However, I would like to make a couple of comments. The first has to do with the 2% furlough for Board Members, Central Office administrators, and principals. Since this a furlough, and not just a reduction in pay, will the administrators and principals will be given a 2% percent reduction in their workloads? There was no mention of how that is to be accomplished. Also, it was mentioned that this would save the school system about $120,000.00 this year. If you do the math, that means that I-SS is paying it Central Office administrators and principals a total of approximately $6,000,000.00 a year. Six million dollars seems like a lot of money to me.

Next, has to do with the millions of dollars I-SS is planning on spending on construction and buying property. Although some have said that we should be able to use some of that money to pay the TAs who are losing their jobs, I think that Dr. Miller made it very clear that State and Federal regulations dictate how the money should be spent. Therefore, I think that is good for I-SS to request this money while it is available. However, I also think that I-SS needs to disclose the full details of each of these projects. For example, it was not made clear how the system will proceed with the Murdock Road property. Dr. Miller stated that the facility would house a career and technical education center, including the district’s growing auto tech program, currently housed at Statesville High School. But, there seems to be no specific plan of how to proceed once the property is purchased. It was mentioned at the Committee of the Whole meeting last week that the county has ask I-SS not to do anything with the property for six months in case there is business that would like to relocate and use the property. Another example is the Unity School property. I-SS has developed and cancelled a number of different plans for this property. Now the system has a new plan and has allocated up to $500,000.00 to start work on the renovations. Here again it was not clear how things would proceed. I have seen the Unity property and I wonder just how far that money will go. Dr. Miller stated that the proposal would be an excellent way to preserve the community’s history and partner with the community. It is about time for the system to carry through with that commitment.

Finally, the Board has moved the public comment segment to near the end of the meeting. I guess they hope most people will not stick around that long. There were several people who spoke about the Unity School project. In addition Janey Munday and I also spoke. Janey said that while I-SS often talks about transparency, when she and other citizens requested schools records, those records were at first reluctantly provided and then the school system started referring anyone requesting records to the attorney in Raleigh. Janey went on to say that it is costing the system a great deal of money to respond to the requests for records. Janey continued by saying that I-SS needs to be more diligent with its money and that if I-SS is truly a transparent school system then the doors should always open to the citizens of Iredell County to check records and to see that monies are spent wisely.

When I have spoken to the Board in the past, the written minutes have not always included everything I said. So this time I had prepared copies of my remarks to give to each of the Board members, the Board secretary and Dr. Holliday. The Board members are seated in a large arc at the front of the room. To the left of the Board members is the Board Secretary and then Dr. Holliday. There is a railing that separates them from the audience. When it was my turn to speak I walked from the right side of the room, where I was seated, to the left side of the room in order to hand the copies to Dr. Holliday since he was the closest to the railing. I assumed that he would simply take them and then pass them on to the Board secretary. Instead he just ignored me and would not take the copies from me as I tried to hand them to him. The secretary had to stand up, walk around behind Dr. Holliday, and then take the copies from me. Now, I am not a man of small stature, and as I said, I walked from the other side of the room, so I know Dr. Holliday saw me. I guess that is just another indication of his lack of character.

My comments to the Board are included below.

My name is Paul Klaene. Thank you for allowing me to speak this evening.

I am asking the Board to include the following comments in the minutes of this meeting for the record.

Federal law, NC state law, and I-SS policy allow the public to inspect, and receive copies of, school records. Following these laws and policies, I have asked to inspect certain school records. I have also asked to receive copies of some of these records. As I mentioned at the last Board meeting, I went to the Central Office on June 8th, as directed by School staff, to pick up some copies of school records. And, before I had a chance to pick up those copies, Dr. Holliday directed me to leave the Central Office. I was not being rude or disruptive in any way. I was at the office for a legal and rightful purpose.

Then, at the last Board meeting, Dr. Holliday chose to publicly chastise me for requesting to inspect school records. Dr. Holliday stated that I-SS had to pay $5,000.00 to retain a lawyer in order to respond to my requests. If the school administration had simply followed the law, and school policy, in responding to my requests, there would have been no need to retain an attorney.

It was totally inappropriate and unprofessional for Dr. Holliday to take these actions against me. I am asking both the Board and Dr. Holliday to publicly apologize to me for his actions.

This was a long post. Thank you for taking the time to read it.