I’m disappointed in the New Berlin School District’s response to my August 8 email.
In my email, I referred to the public notice of the July 28 District Annual Meeting published in the July 24 New Berlin NOW newspaper. I asked about a prior notice.
The district response: It was published only that one time; it should have been published twice; a note has been made to do so next year.
The minutes of the May 12 Board of Education Meeting were published in the June 5 NOW newspaper. Because I couldn’t find the minutes of later New Berlin School Board meetings, such as May 19, June 9, June 16 meetings in any of my New Berlin NOW editions, I inquired about it.
The district’s response: The minutes of those meetings had been sent to NOW on the days following the meetings at which they were approved. They were faxed not emailed. They’ve now been emailed to the editor and will be published in the next New Berlin NOW. The district employee who handled these responsibilities retired in May.
My thoughts:
Apparently, the “reorganization” of administrative and secretarial staff at the District Office contributed to the deficient district communication. Frankly, I don’t care whether the meeting minutes were faxed or emailed. There should have been follow-through. Nor do I care when the minutes were “approved”.
I do care that the meeting minutes were not published as required by board policy and law.
According to New Berlin School Board Policy, the proceedings of all regular and special meetings of the Board of Education shall be published as required by law. The New Berlin Citizen is the official newspaper. Community Newspapers (Journal Communications) replaced the New Berlin Citizen with NOW quite awhile ago.
The law (Wisconsin Statute) 120.11(4) states:
NOW is a newspaper published in the school district. Note that the statute specifies that the proceedings of a school board meeting shall be published within 45 days after the meeting and it's been well over 45 days since the May 19, June 9, and June 16 school board meetings were held.
Compliance with board policy and state law should not be dismissed by district personnel as a "detail" that was overlooked. How sad that informing the public as required via notices and meeting minutes is something that "dropped through the cracks".
Regarding another botched district communication: A Meeting & Report booklet was given to the electorate at the 2008 Annual Meeting. The minutes of last year’s (2007) Annual Meeting are on pages 21 and 22 of the booklet. Most of page 22 of my copy is blank. Oddly, the motion /votes approving the tax levy, and setting a date and time for the 2008 Annual Meeting are missing from it.
