Hometown Insanity, Part Two (School Board Meeting Edition)

I am in shock.

I went to a Lebanon Community School District School Board meeting tonight.

I have never seen something so pathetic in my life, and that includes me and how much I fawn over my cats.

Four of the five members have been on the board for more than a year, yet they don't follow the established rules governing how the committee runs (in this case, Roberts' Rules of Order). They are barely functional.

What's worse is that I can't decide if they don't follow the rules because they don't like them or because they - with the exception of the chair and maybe one other member - don't actually understand how they work. I'm leaning towards the latter because there were at least two instances in which the board members - and Rick Alexander in particular - got himself so tangled up in motions and amendments that he effectively prevented himself from getting what he wanted until someone, usually the chair, bailed him out by explaining what his options were and what the consequences would be.

I was on a budgeting board at OSU and a media oversight board that both used, ostensibly, RRO. I hated them - I think they really limit discussion and aren't near as adaptable as their proponents do - but at least I understood them by, I don't know, the time I needed to use them.

I only stayed at the meeting for two major agenda items, and on both of them the Board stumbled around like drunken children. The Chair, Sherrie Sprenger, was acting like a mother to the board, shepherding and herding them towards where they wanted to go even when it was clear that she would have preferred they do something different. I guess that makes her practically the only professionally-behaving person on the board.

Well, her and Chris Fisher, but he didn't have much to say aside from some passioned pleas to follow the rule of law. It's a sad day when his cries to follow established procedure end up on the other side of the teachers in the audience. They really should know better.

If I had done that during my second year on either of the committees I served on, I would been the laughingstock of everyone in the room, especially on the media committee. We at least knew that a board has to deal with one motion at a time, rather than introduce several conflicting motions at once and then try to resolve the tangled web.

Why did I even go in the first place? See here.

What happened at the meeting? Two things of note: there was an agenda item regarding finding an interim replacement for Superintendent Jim Robinson, and there was an agenda item regarding finding someone to do an outside performance review of Robinson (ostensibly, the reason they placed him on indefinite paid administrative leave in the first place).

The Interim Superintendent

When I read in the paper that the Board would be looking for an interim person to fill Robinson's position, I immediately thought of his underling, Assistant Superintendent Steve Kelley. Normally, in a position like this, one would simply let the next guy down the line step in for the duration. The reasoning is pretty simple: absent any outstanding reason (the assistant being part of the problem is the one that comes to mind), the assistant is the one who knows the position best and has the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively run the place while the boss is gone.

The second thing I think of is the fact that if you're not just going to appoint the immediately most qualified person, you'd better have some kind of rationale for appointing someone - which usually means a public search with some halfway decent criteria.

In the case of the LCSD School Board, I could not have been more wrong. Instead of even talking about the process, Rick Alexander immediately put forth a motion to "appoint" Ken Ray, who is the current Principal of Lebanon High School, interim Superintendent.

He didn't even ask that man first. He didn't even ask him first. Unless, of course, he had talked to him beforehand and this was all a sham deal. Possible, but I want to have more respect for Ray than that.

Instead, we got motions and seconds and amendments and some painful discussion. Chris Fisher pointed to some policies that suggested that Steve Kelley takes over automatically in the "absence" of the Superintendent, but Sprenger pointed out that there is also a provision in district policy that allows for an appointed interim in the case that the permanent person holding the position is unavailable. They argued over that for a bit, and then someone - I think Sprenger - pointed out that they needed to ask Ken Ray first, and maybe, just maybe, they could amend the motion from "appointing" to "entering into a conversation with Ken Ray about the possibility of his accepting the position of interim Superintendent."

Like I said, it was pathetic. Worst comedy show I've ever seen, let me tell you. No subtlety in the writing - just a direct, brute appeal to power.

Ken Ray happened to be in the audience, which was not surprising, as it had been in the newspaper that one of the board members wanted to ask him to step in while Robinson is gone. Sherrie Sprenger asked him very directly if he would be interested in talking about the possibility of wearing two hats; he responded with some platitudes about being honored and then said yes.

The motion to ask Ray to attend an executive session (meaning closed to the public) meeting in which they would discuss the terms of his hiring passed 3-2, with Sprenger and Fisher voting against. It was predictable.

Personally, I am a little shocked that a) no one asked Steve Kelley to step in, b) they asked Ken Ray so quickly, and c) there was no sense of process or procedure or even a vague, weak attempt to actually look for someone qualified. I think I'm too used to semi-professional, liberal bureaucracies (those of Oregon State) that try to follow the rules. If a board had tried to pull this at OSU - call a special meeting when the victim is out of town caring for his sick mother, then proceed to suspend him indefinitely, then proceed to hand-select a replacement - there would have been outrage.

Instead, there were dozens of people in audience that cheered and clapped when the motion passed. Many of them were teachers. On the one hand, that was somewhat unprofessional. On the other, the fact that so many people were that upset at Robinson suggests that there is a very real basis for their anger. I will try and return to that at near the end of this (very long) post.

The External Performance Review

The sad, sad shenanigans continued with the next agenda item. When they broached the subject, the board did so in such a poor fashion that I wasn't able to figure out what they were talking about for more than 10 minutes into the discussion, once they had got themselves so tangled in motions and amendments that Sprenger once again had to step in and explain what was going on - and this time it was to the audience as well as the board.

When they finally got things tangled out, here is what happened, at least as far as I could tell: Chair Sprenger wanted to simply start talking about the process they would use to select someone. Alexander (and by extension Shimmin and Wineteer) wanted to select someone on the spot, someone they had already researched. This time, the lack of process and procedure almost got them in very, very hot water.

I should note that at the beginning of the meeting, Alexander noted the name of a law firm that he had in mind. He was very insistent that it be placed on the agenda. I was never clear if he didn't actually know that the topic - finding an outside review person - was already on the agenda (copies of which the audience had, btw), or whether he actually wanted the name of his chosen law firm to be physically on the agenda. Either option suggests he's not very bright.

Shimmin first asked to talk a bit about one potential candidate she had talked to. She listed the woman's accolades, but noted that she wasn't "proposing a candidate."

Two second later, Alexander motioned to approve her as the outside performance review person. Sprenger asked - and this was a good insight on her part - if the person in question, Kathy Beck (I think) was part of the law firm Alexander had talked about earlier.

Lo and behold, it was the same. Funny how that sort of stuff works. I should also note that Sprenger had compiled several names and firms of what she thought were potential candidates, but she didn't want to talk about them until they had a handle on the process they were going to use.

During the discussion on Alexander's motion, Chris Fisher pleaded again to follow some sort of decent process - you know, an open search for the most qualified candidate. He also pointed out that any money they spent on this would not be spent on students, a point that NO ONE APPEARED TO CARE ABOUT, teachers included (again suggesting that there is an immense amount of anger in the district over Robinson's behavior and policies). Alexander and Shimmin appeared to have made up their minds already, so they objected, obviously wanting to get their way.

Finally, and I am very thankful of this, Donna Chastain, who is an employee of the LCSD, pointed out that any time they spent more than $5,000 on something like this, they have to have an open, competitive process involving written bids. Any more than $150,000, she said, and they have to give out a Request For Proposal, or RFP. That, she pointed out, is state law. Furthermore, she said, the typical process for something like this takes 60-90 days, which means that unless the School Board opts to make an end run around the rules, Robinson will be on paid administrative leave for a minimum of several months. That's a lot of money.

As far as I know - because this is about where I left - the Board tabled any decisionmaking and instead proposed to meet Thursday in a working group to try and figure out how to proceed. It's possible that something happened after I left, but I really, really hope not.

There was one other agenda item that I wanted to stay for, but as it was near the end of the agenda and I was already frustrated, I decided to leave.

The agenda item? "School Board Ethics."

Just thinking about it blows my mind, as most of those folks have absolutely no standing to talk about ethics after their little stunt the previous Monday.

Analysis (of a sort)

So what were some of the consequences of the two agenda items? What did I learn from watching the board for a few hours? Sigh...it's so tempting to write some version of "how not to behave," but I won't.

I learned that as far as I can tell, Rick Alexander is a hack who, as I suggested before, really just cares about power. He certainly doesn't care about the students of the district. His complete lack of respect and understanding of the rules and procedure is apparently a feature for him, and not a bug. I also learned that he, or the audience, felt no need to be consistent. They were upset when Bo Yates was relieved of one of his two positions, but felt there was no problem in appointing Ken Ray to simultaneously be Superintendent and Principal of LHS. At the least, people were thinking about it and never said anything. At worst, they didn't even realize how inconsistent those two positions are. At this point, I suspect it was the latter, given how little ethics or principles of any kind have gotten in the way of people's desire to get their way.

I learned that Mrs. Shimmin is in way over her head.

I learned that Mr. Wineteer wasn't very talkative.

I learned that Chris Fisher desperately wants everyone to slow down and become the deliberative body the school board is designed to be, or at least he wants to make sure that the board follows existing policies, procedures, and state law. It's a sad day when that makes one an outcast and a minority, but that's where he was.

It's also interesting that the classic conservative argument of the "rule of law" is being touted by the board moderate, and completely ignored by the people who seem to be political conservatives. And by interesting, of course, I mean pathetic. I'm all for breaking unjust laws (see MLK's Letters from a Birmingham Jail), but I don't think that a law requiring and fair and open process when spending tens of thousands of dollars is all that unjust. Inconvenient, yes. Unjust? Please.

And I learned that Sherrie Sprenger is desperately holding on, afraid that if she bails on this disaster that it will only get worse. She is also do a very good job behaving as a professional, neutral chair in the face of ignorant absurdity. I felt a lot of compassion for her and Chris Fisher, as they were trying to slow down the lynch mob with very little public support.

There was one moment when I sort of confused. One agenda item was celebrating a woman who has organized and provided 11,000 meals for students this summer with only four other volunteers. She got a standing ovation from the crowd, which is pretty awesome. However, I realized that the only reason she got such attention is that the crowd was there to see Robinson get hammered. In essence, the crowd was there for blood and out of anger, yet they applauded like mad when something very, very positive came up.

At first, I thought that was very strange and very inconsistent. Now I think the crowd doesn't see it as inconsistent at all, since they view Robinson as a harm to the students. Nevertheless, it sticks in my mind that what brought them to the meeting was not the amazing accomplishments of this woman (who may have been blind, I couldn't tell) but their anger at their own Superintendent. Without that, there would have been 15 people in the audience instead of several hundred.

What else?

Oh yes - the best line of the night, especially from my perspective, was Rick Alexander saying "I don't understand the...process." I laughed out loud, because what I heard was someone admitting they were totally clueless....and totally unqualified to be on the board. I may have some blind spot thing going on here, but I keep coming back to his level of support among teachers - if it's not widespread, it's pretty deep, especially among long-time teachers in the district - and how that signals an incredible amount of anger at Jim Robinson. I have to admit that this is also changing my perspective on this whole thing.

The more I think about it, the more compassion I feel for the angry teachers. From what I have heard from teachers and other knowledgeable sources, Robinson does have a very abrasive personality and did force the academy system down LHS's throat. For those reasons, I think the anger is justified. Saying "that's just his personality" does not excuse such poor behavior. As a result, I am beginning to think the anger from the parents and teachers is pretty legitimate; I have admit, also, that until tonight I tended to write it off to Alexander's meddling and normal district politics. Given the turnout and behavior of the crowd, I need to reconsider that assumption.

Despite that, I stand by my original position that the behavior of the teachers and the three board members - Alexander, Wineteer, and Shimmin - is disgraceful. It's taking time and energy away from the needs of students; it's not addressing substantial issues brought up by the presence of the small-schools system (of which I think there are many); the process that's being used is pretty much brute force and raw power, which, while probably typical of Lebanon, is doing a lot towards making the LCSD something to be laughed at, as well as setting a piss-poor example for the otherwise very intelligent students that are paying attention to this disaster of local government in action; and finally, I think it's case where the means are going to result in a very ugly end that no one wanted or foresaw (except maybe Sprenger and Fisher).

I should also point out that bringing in the academy system in the first place sounds like a somewhat desperate and innovative attempt on the Superintendent to try and improve a school with high dropout rates and low grades. His application of the system may have stunk, but at least he was trying - and trying something that's on the cutting edge of K-12 education. And by some metrics, the system appears to be working.

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Lebanon just couldn't handle some so...so...radical as a substantive change in education policy. If so, shame on them.

So, what happens next? The whole sordid affair plays out, one agonizingly incompetent meeting at a time, and in the end, I think Robinson might actually leave the district. He might reform his ways, and the academy system might get jettisoned, or he might prevail in this fight largely due to the incompetence of the folks attacking him. At this point, I'm not going to predict an outcome. Too many things could happen between now and then.

One thing remains certain: Anger - even justified anger - has not, thus far, led to anything but stupid, unproductive behavior. Maybe it's time the School Board sits down and remembers they are a deliberative body tasked with doing the best they can for the students in their district - and maybe it's time the teachers realized that once the Rick Alexander monster succeeds in getting rid of Jim Robinson, it's only going to turn on them.

And maybe - but I doubt it - the parents and community members who haven't yet joined the rabid lynch mob will step in and restore some sanity the board.

They want to get rid of Robinson? Fine. Just don't destroy the district in the quest to do it.