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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > February > 24
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Not all rules are bad
It was one of the central ideas of charter school movement — public schools are immobilzed by red tape from which they need to be released. Rules, rules, rules block true reform at every turn.
I think many public school folks would agree that there are too many rules. But some rules are there for a reason. And in my mind one of the most important rules for public institutions, schools or otherwise, is transparency. When the public is spending its money, it should be able to see how that money is spent and how the structures that money funds are operating.
In my experience covering charter schools in Dayton for the past nine years, transparency has been a concern. It’s not necessarily the case that charters are trying to hide anything. Most often, what I’ve seen is simply that charter school operators don’t know the rules when it comes to public access to documents and meetings.
Case in point — City Day Community School.
Meetings of public boards — school boards, library boards, city councils, etc. — are open to the public under Ohio law. Those boards can only meet behind closed doors if they meet very specific conditions for exemption from the state’s “Sunshiine Law” that requires openness.
These rules apply to the governing board of charter schools, just as they do to all public school boards. If there is one school in the city that should be familiar with the rules by now it’s nine-year-old City Day — one of the state’s oldest charter schools. Governing boards must advertise their meeting times and allow anyone who wishes to attend.
But when I went 10 minutes early to City Day’s 6 p.m. governing board meeting on Dec. 14, I found the board already discussing business. They were surprised to see me (I don’t think they get many visitors to their meetings) when I entered the closed room. I looked at my watch and asked if they had started the meeting early. No, they said, they were just finishing up and would begin the formal meeting at 6 p.m.
Well, I said, I’ll just sit down in the room while they finish up. When they asked me to wait outside, I pointed out that a majority of the governing board was in the room discussing board business and that constituted an official meeting under state law that must be open to the public.
“He’s right,” one member of the group said. They broke up while just two members stayed in the room to continue the discussion.
Then there was Thursday’s meeting of the City Day board. This time, interim board president Clinton Brown motioned that the board go into executive (closed) session to discuss “personnel and finances.” State Rep. Clayton Luckie, who was in attendance, immediately objected. “Finances” is never a permitted reason for a closed meeting under Ohio law.
Neither is “personnel,” I pointed out. To discuss a particular employee, the board had to state the reason for the closed meeting, such as to discuss the employee’s possible suspension, discipline, promotion, demotion, firing, change in compensation, etc.
Brown tried again, saying the board would go into executive session to discuss, “hiring, firing or promotion of employees.” It was close enough to be permitted under the Sunshine Law.
When I attend meetings at which things like this happen, I have an advantage in that I am pretty well versed in the state’s open meetings and open records laws because of the nature of my work. The average teachers, parent or community member who might attend such a meeting would have a hard time understanding how the school operates and how public money is spent if the board were to go into closed meetings for the sorts of reasons they stated.
This can also be a problem when it comes to documents. At times, I’ve asked Dayton charter schools for routine documents that are indisputably public — budget documents, employee salaries, etc. — only to find the schools unresponsive.
The only avenue to remedy these violations of state law it to go to court and sue the violators. The Dayton Daily News has done this in the past. We’ve sued the Dayton Board of Education twice since I’ve worked for the paper — once over documents and once over meetings. We won both times and the court ordered the board to comply with the law.
The newspaper does not file such lawsuits without careful consideration of the costs and benefits both to the paper and to the community. It’s an easier case to make that we need to enforce the law with a large school district. An individual charter school affects fewer people. For serious cases, I think the paper would take action, but the decentralized nature of the schools means opening a potential can of worms. We can’t sue every individual school in every case of violating the Sunshine Law.
This is where I think it’s time the state considered the need for educating charter schools about the open records and open meetings. Before charters are awarded, the potential operators should demonstrate understanding of the Sunshine Law and perhaps even be required to show it had legal counsel with First Amendment expertise.
I think this would be a good step toward ensuring public accountability.
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