What started out as an effort to recall a school board member that had missed 9 out of the last 17 meetings has now turned into needed legislation. Why you might ask? Because state law currently allows for recall of all elected county officials with the exception of school board members for unchartered counties, of which we are one.
After finding out that we had elected officials who cannot be recalled we checked into the attendance requirements for school board members only to find out that there are none. There are rules that mandate attendance requirements for students and for the school advisory panel which is a volunteer position, but not for the people who are actually being paid. The local school board could set their own attendance requirements but when asked to add it to the agenda for a vote the board chairwoman refused to even discuss it. Judy Kennedy, a concerned citizen, addressed the board to discuss this and followed it up with a letter asking for it to be added to the agenda of an upcoming meeting. The response she received was done on school board letterhead and stated, “I am in receipt of your letter. I will not bring up an attendance policy for elected school board members at the next meeting or any other meeting. If any other member wishes to bring this up for discussion, then I will address the issue.”
Needless to say no one wants to bring this up on the agenda. The bottom line here is that we have an elected school board that is held to no standards. The way it is currently set up a person could be elected and never attend one school board meeting while still making a paycheck of $37,500 per year. The only way they can be removed is by the Governor, but since there is no attendance requirement, there are no grounds to remove them. This should be unaccepatable to all voters! When one considers that there are only 24 meetings per year each lasting approximately 2 hours I don’t think it’s too much for the voters to ask that they attend these meetings. While the majority of our school board members do attend the meetings we need to have some kind of accountability for those who do not. If you want to get involved with this issue please contact Representative John Legg at john.leg@myfloridahouse.gov and let him know you believe some accountability is needed by our local school board .
From George:
The school board member that missed the 9 meetings was paid $14062.50 for her non-attendence. Not a bad paycheck for a do nothing, non caring elected official.
I totally agree. In todays paper they were discussing how said board member wants to continue by phone to work and not show up at all. True, she’s had a lot of stuff happen to her this past year but haven’t we all? Boy, after a horrific year at Schrader elementary I pulled my son out at the ripe old age of 6 years old and now I homeschool. Yes, Pasco Schools needs something a kick in the accountability posterior is a start. Lots of cushy jobs that get nice paychecks without the work. here is a whole entire department devoted to “homeschoolers” and they do nothing. Really. They could be replaced by a computer sign in program. We the parents do it all. Getting testing done, teaching, submitting forms etc. Yet a whole department of pampered Pasco school employees are supposed to be there to help the homeschoolers. Right…..