Menomonie School Board 11/26/2018

The monthly Special Board Meeting was held on Monday, 11/26/2018 at 5:30 PM. This meeting discussed budget plans, and also included a discussion on board leadership, and an election of new board officers, as suggested at the last meeting.  The board agenda and board policy on leadership are attached. Notes on the meeting are below, and the video of the meeting will be added some time Tuesday afternoon.

Meeting Notes - 

Meeting opened with Community Communications.  Several community members spoke about the issues raised in the last meeting re; the ethics allegations against the board president Dan Paulson. They all spoke in one way or another in favor of the board president and against the ethics allegations. Warren Lang spoke in an attempt to clarify that Dan Paulson had no part in the letter that was sent from Menomonie Cares in regard to the recent funding for the sports complex.

John See spoke and read a letter he had sent to the board re: the hostility between board members, as witnessed in the Wis.Community video. He spoke against attempts to remove Dan Paulson.

An election for Board Officers was on the agenda as an action item. Board Member Amy Swanson raised issues on whether the officer election can be held legally at the second meeting of the month, 

Further discussion occurred between Heather Klanderman and Amy Swanson on an issue regarding social media attacks on Ms. Klanderman.

A motion was made to change board officers. A fairly testy discussion followed about whether the election is legal - partly because the election is supposed to be annual, and that there is a board policy that votes will not take place on the second meeting of the month.

Jim Swanson made a motion to table the election indefinitely because of the legal issues.

Questions were asked of board attorney Weld, who had the opinion that the board can remove an officer under state law by a majority vote of the board, This then became an issue of state law opinions vs. the board policy, and whether the board chooses to follow its own policy on this issue or the more lenient state law. 

The motion to table the vote was approved and the board moved on to discussion items.

The board received a report on the good performance of the district on the State Accountability Report Cards.

The board discussed the upcoming budget for 2019-2020. There will be a mid-year budget hearing before the Jan 14 board meeting (5:00 PM). 

New course proposals for 2018-2020 - 

New math course called Math for Technical Trades is being brought forward that would be a dual-credit class for Menomonie High School and Chippewa Valley Technical College. 

There may be a collapse of Algebra 2 and Advanced Algebra 2 into one course next year. 

The discussion of Board Leadership policy was brief and mostly a discussion that the board is not dysfunctional as has been declared by some in the community, but has strong differences of opinion on the best way to proceed. 

The discussion of a change in board leadership was removed from the agenda in light of the new election of officers being tabled. The closed session in the agenda was also removed.

There will be a Dec. 4 board retreat, and only the normal board meeting in December - there will be no speical meeting in December as it would have fallen on Christmas Eve.