{"id":20740,"date":"2016-08-08T13:10:53","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T17:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=20740"},"modified":"2016-08-08T13:27:01","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T17:27:01","slug":"questions-raised-over-school-board-retreats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=20740","title":{"rendered":"Questions raised over school board retreats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unionville-Chadds Ford challenged on private gatherings<\/em><\/h2>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Privacy\"When the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Board of Education meets for a work session tonight, one of the main topics will be establishing the long-term goals for the district, but while it will be the first time the board discusses the issue in public, it won\u2019t be the first such discussion by the board.<\/span><\/p>\n

The board met in an informal, private gathering in mid-July \u2014 called a retreat \u2014 with the district\u2019s goals one of the main topics of discussion. <\/span><\/p>\n

Such retreats are very common among school boards in Pennsylvania \u2014 and while critics argue they hurt the transparency of elected bodies, supporters say that the \u201cgatherings\u201d allow for out of the box discussions and a level of creativity that wouldn\u2019t be possible in a standard public meeting. Records show three such \u201cgatherings\u201d in the last 18 months by the UCF board.<\/span><\/p>\n

The nature \u2014 and propriety of such meetings \u2014 is now coming under scrutiny with a district resident challenging the time-honored practice. The issue is not contained to Unionville-Chadds Ford \u2014 in other districts around the commonwealth, questions have arisen about whether such retreats are in the public interest. Already, Avon Grove School District moved earlier this year to open at least a portion of its retreats to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Stookey of Chadds Ford has both challenged the legality and propriety of the UCF board holding retreats \u2014 sessions for informal education and discussion \u2014 in a closed-door environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows a total lack of transparency,\u201d Stookey said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Related: Opinion \u2014\u00a0School boards should take a look at ending retreats<\/a><\/em><\/h3>\n
\n

While the question of these session\u2019s legality offers some gray areas \u2014 as argued by Stookey \u2013 the district, the district\u2019s legal adviser and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) say that a 2014 state Supreme Court ruling allows public bodies to hold such meetings legally. While the court case that defines the boundaries of such retreats \u2014 Smith v. Township of Richmond<\/i> \u2014 makes it clear that boards cannot deliberate on issues at private \u201cgatherings,\u201d discussion and debate are permitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

For context \u2014 \u201cgatherings\u201d appear here in quotes as they are specifically defined as informal, informational meetings under Smith<\/i>. \u201cMeetings\u201d are more typically defined as the regularly scheduled sessions, such as work sessions and regular meetings at which formal business and votes are taken.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stookey and critics of the process argue that the \u201cgatherings\u201d \u2014 legal or not \u2014 and\u00a0by conducting any business or discussions that impact the future of the school district in private, it shows a lack of transparency and offers opportunities to shut out the public. He cites comments \u2014 as reported in April in The Times<\/i> \u2014 by board president Victor Dupuis that the board decided at an earlier retreat to change the district\u2019s budgeting philosophy from its long-standing \u201cconservative\u201d approach to a tighter methodology as evidence that the board has made decisions in private. The board did discuss that decision and took a number of public votes on the 2016-17 budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

In defense of the \u201cgatherings\u201d both district sources and others pointed that the ability of board members to make suggestions that might be deemed as silly, bizarre or controversial during brainstorming sessions is a valuable tool in seeking creative, \u201cout of the box\u201d solutions. Similar sessions have been embraced in a number of industries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stookey also expressed frustration with two other aspects of the issue: his Right To Know requests were turned down and he has had trouble getting timely responses from the district to his inquiries. As such, he enlisted the services of an attorney \u2014 and the most recent correspondence he sent to the district has not gotten a formal response. District sources suggested that a formal response to Stookey and his legal representative is \u201cin the offing\u201d while noting that there were no records from the retreat to disclose.<\/span><\/p>\n

District Superintendent John Sanville declined comment \u2014 beyond defending the transparency of the district, which he argues is among the best in the commonwealth in terms of sharing information with the community \u2014 citing potential litigation and referring all comment to district Solicitor Jack Merrick.<\/span><\/p>\n

Merrick cited Smith<\/i> and said, while he said he personally has not attended the retreats, he has offered guidance to the board and administration, making it clear what is appropriate and what is not. The PSBA offers similar guidance \u2014 discussions and debate are allowed at retreats, but formal deliberation is not, according to Emily Leader, Member Services Counsel for the PSBA.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the state\u2019s Office of Open Records Executive Director, Erik Arneson, the line between \u201cdiscussions\u201d \u2014 legal \u2014 and \u201cdeliberations\u201d \u2014 not legal \u2014 is a fine one. But proving such a violation is the burden of those making the claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the court said in Smith<\/i>, Sunshine Act cases tend to be highly fact-sensitive,\u201d Arneson said. \u201cBecause the burden is on the plaintiff to establish that deliberations (i.e., discussion for the purpose of making a decision, as opposed to mere discussion) took place at a private meeting, violations can be difficult to prove.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUnder Smith v. Township of Richmond<\/i>, closed meetings are allowed \u2018solely for the purpose of collecting information or educating agency members about an issue.\u2019 In Smith<\/i>, a total of four meetings were held about the same issue \u2013 namely, how quarry operations affected neighboring municipalities and whether it\u2019s possible to mitigate the impact.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible that an off-site retreat such as described below could fall under the umbrella of \u2018fact-finding,\u2019 \u201d Arneson continued, \u201calthough I\u2019m not aware of any case law directly on point for a meeting that would, apparently, be fairly broad in scope.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The key issue, legal experts say, is the legal definition of \u201cdeliberations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In defining terms as part of its ruling in the Smith case, the state Supreme Court defined \u201cdeliberations:\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026the Act defines ‘deliberation’ in terms of discussion of agency business-namely, the framing, preparation, or enactment of laws, policies,<\/span> or regulations, or the creation of liability by contract or otherwise,\u00a0 <\/span>…-but only where the discussion is\u00a0 <\/span>‘held for the purpose of making a decision.\u201d\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

And again, the courts have also ruled that public bodies can reach a tentative consensus \u2014 via a straw poll \u2014 without violating the law. They still must vote for those issues that require formal approval in public \u2014 in this case both the budget process as well as goal setting were\/will be discussed in a public session and voted on by the board. <\/span><\/p>\n

But Stookey argues that the board, in essence moved from discussions to deliberation by largely making decisions \u2014 citing the budgeting decision and that the goals will have been largely decided before the board gavels into session on Monday night. Again, though, both of those issues could be considered to fall under administrative guidelines \u2014 areas where the board functions as a supervisor to the administration and can informally express its preferences, rather than the sort of item that would require formal board votes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The area where there seems to be agreement is intent. Stookey makes it clear that he doesn\u2019t think the district or the board is intentionally trying to hide information from the public, but rather misunderstanding the law and how their conduct appears to a community that has had trust issues with the district at times in recent years (alluding to the divisive moves to push through a bond issue after two public referendums to rebuild Unionville High School failed nearly a decade ago).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLegal or not, it doesn\u2019t look good,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unionville-Chadds Ford challenged on private gatherings By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times When the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District Board of Education meets for a work session tonight, one of the main topics will be establishing the long-term goals for the district, but while it will be the first time the board discusses the issue in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[451,6518,7795,7794,2180],"class_list":["post-20740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-board-of-education","tag-featured","tag-retreats","tag-sunshine-act","tag-unionville-chadds-ford-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20740"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20748,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20740\/revisions\/20748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}