School Board Meeting Assignment

Online EDU 210

Jessica M. Gonzalez

The School Board Meeting held on June 3, 2013 was more interesting than a

daytime talk show. I never knew that members of the public; which many were either

parents or employees of the school district, could express themselves the way that they

do in these formal meetings. I realize that everyone has their own opinion about the

matters that are discussed in each meeting. However, I was not aware that you can be

so blunt towards a trustee member and actually get away with it. People were not

necessarily being rude, but the words they used at times were not very nice. Some of

the members were being criticized personally for the decisions they were making.

The major topic of the meeting was regarding the election of Pat Skorkowski

as the new superintendent of Clark Country. Several members of the public gave their

opinion about the election of the superintendent, more bad than good. Members of the

board also talked about why they felt the need to nominate Skorkowski. Members of

the public seem to feel that the board was rushing to elect someone. One person even

stated that if Skorkowski was elected, no changes or improvements to our schools

would be made. "He has been part of the school district for 25 years, has been part of

the problem and never made any improvements in all those years", a gentleman stated.

"We need to recruit someone with new ideas that can make the necessary changes and

improve the school district", the same man stated. One gentleman gave Skorkowski

props because he knew him personally and he has helped him with his charity in the past.

The members of the board of trustees just seemed to be in such a hurry to finally elect
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someone as the superintendent. They listened to the comments of the public, but in no

way did it seem to sway them from their decision.

Another topic that seems to come up frequently is increasing business taxes to

help provide more money for education. One gentleman made it a point to remind the

board that during the next elections, one should vote "yes" on charging businesses extra

taxes to help put money back in schools.

I am very familiar with bullying in schools. However, in this board meeting I

learned how school employees, are not being bullied by their students, but by their own

co workers. Interesting enough, school employees are being bullied by their own boss,

the school principal. One person explained how two hispanic workers in a school were

being called "wet backs" by the principal. Another person stated that she was quiting

the school she was working in because co workers were making comments about her

and how it was affecting her personally. She stated she was there for the children and

wanted to be part of their graduation this year, but was having problems because she

was not given permission to attend by school officials. You could tell that this poor

woman just wanted to cry as she spoke.

One gentleman made it a point to tell the school board members that the district

needs more teachers and fewer students in each class. "The children should be the

priority", he stated. Another gentleman also pointed out that the money spent on

salary and bonuses for the new superintendent should go towards education and that

money should also be spent on hiring teachers.

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Several of the issues discussed in this meeting are subjects that we will hopefully

go over in this class. Subjects like teacher discipline, and discrimination and harrassment

in the school environment. These two topics are especially important to discuss because

who knew this occurred, I did not. I was not aware probably because I do not work in a

school at the moment. Another topic I hope we discuss is religion in schools. Our

children are told not to discuss the subject in school, but every board meeting that I was

listening to began with the pledge of allegiance. The words "under God" are still part of

the pledge of allegiance as far as I know.

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References:

1.) School Board Meeting (2013/June), Retrieved from http://www.tv.ccsd.net