School board sticks with current plan

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 23, 2009

By David Vitrano

L’Observateur

RESERVE – Despite efforts to change the frequency of meetings, the St. John Parish School Board has decided to maintain a schedule similar to the one they have employed for the last few years.

This means during most months the board will meet twice.

Board President Gerald Keller had originally pushed for the board to meet only one time per month. His reasoning behind this was to give the various committees more opportunity to meet.

At the Dec. 3 school board meeting, however, some board members thought the reduced meeting schedule would hinder the performance of the board.

Although he recognized the good intentions behind Keller’s proposal, board member Russ Wise said, “I would see this quickly devolving into one meeting per month for most of these board members.”

Board member James Madere took offense at Wise’s statement and said he thought it was a good plan to try to get the system back working the way it used to. He said committees are not as active now as they were in previous times.

Wise, however, noted, “I think we owe it to the taxpayers to meet more then once a month.”

He then offered a substitute motion to maintain the current meeting schedule. Ultimately, however, the vote was delayed until Dec. 17.

At that meeting the board voted unanimously to maintain the current meeting schedule.