Clarification of Tonight's Special Board Meeting Regarding the Equity Policy

I wanted to clarify (via the Board President) the reason for the equity policy meeting tonight. If you remember last winter a majority of the Board indicated it wanted to set up a task force to look at the equity policy - but did not give any further directions. Tonight’s meeting is to bringing the issue back to the Board for further discussion and to get more direction from the members about a possible composition and charge to a task force. In President’s defense, she gave her commitment to the community that the board would have a citizen group work on this issue and she’s following through.

Regarding “special meetings” regarding this or other board items – A special meeting is called when a topic isn’t assigned to a committee or needs further discussion. It is an opportunity for the board to discuss an item and take action to possible “next steps.” Now to be clear, the Board could make this the final step by someone making a motion. However, I don’t believe that is the Board President’s intent.

Personally, I am fine with the proposed equity policy. I have made these feelings known through my statements this past winter/spring and voting record. The equity resource formula that the district has been operating from for several years takes the politics out of the recourse allocations (which is a great concern for me) and allocates resources based on student populations. In essence, the district’s most needy schools get more resources but not at the expense of the other schools in the district.

There are some in our community who have raised issue regarding the proposed equity policy as well as some members of the school board. If members of the board and community would like to further study the proposed policy, I won’t stand in the way. Given the financial constraints of school districts throughout Wisconsin an equity policy is not going to stop the cutting of millions of dollars from the budget. Lastly – “Equity does not mean Equal.”

And I think people have a hard time with that.

Posted by Johnny Winston, Jr. at September 12, 2005 11:18 AM
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