Showing posts with label Ozark Schools Support Team. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ozark Schools Support Team. Show all posts
Friday, February 23, 2024
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Undermining Free Speech
By Gretchen Garrity
There are many ways in which publicly-funded entities limit and suppress the right of the public to speak freely.
Art. I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of the State of Missouri states: “That no law shall be passed impairing the freedom of speech, no matter by what means communicated: that every person shall be free to say, write or publish, or otherwise communicate whatever he will on any subject, being responsible for all abuses of that liberty…”
Right behind that is “Sec. 9, Rights of peaceable assembly and petition. – That the people have the right peaceably to assemble for their common good, and to apply to those invested with the powers of government for redress of grievances by petition or remonstrance.”
A 2015 article in the Springfield News-leader discusses the latitude the state has apparently given to public governing boards when it comes to free speech.
According to the article, “Former Springfield City Attorney Howard Wright, who has written about the subject on his website [website is no longer active], said courts have found that citizens must be given a "meaningful opportunity to comment" when a public hearing is required. But as long as that happens, "I think council has a lot of discretion to adopt rules and procedures."
The article then shares some of the rules and regulations local governing bodies have applied to public speech at their meetings.
If you have attended a public meeting lately, you may have run into some of the ways boards limit and suppress speech. It is usually couched in terms of timeliness, application to the current agenda, distractions and so forth, but what actually occurs is an undue limit on the rights of citizens to communicate to and with their elected and/or appointed boards in a public setting.
The rules and guidelines seem geared toward troublemakers, but give precious little evidence that
citizens in general are not already acting in an orderly and polite
manner. Public forums can get boisterous, passionate, even
contentious at times, but citizens usually do a wonderful job of
policing themselves, and should not be made to suffer for a board of
thin-skinned individuals who want to control every action of the
audience and can brook no distraction of any kind.
Time limits on public speech—giving citizens as little as three minutes to speak on a topic—is one way in which free speech is suppressed. That is not a “meaningful opportunity to comment.” Three minutes to address a grievance or inquire of the board is often not enough time to fully express an issue. Also, boards tend not to respond to the issues addressed. They sit mute before the public, presumably hoping the person and therefore the issue will disappear.
This is from the Ozark School District Public Comment policies:
“The board encourages residents to utilize the process for placing items on the agenda but will also specifically designate time for district residents to provide public comments at regular meetings of the board. The following rules will apply to the public comment portion of the meeting:
The board will establish a time limit for the public comment period.
No individual will be permitted to speak more than once during this period.
The board will establish a uniform time limit for each speaker.
Discussion will be limited to items from the posted agenda.
All speakers must provide his or her name and address prior to speaking.
If there is insufficient time for everyone to speak, the board will encourage participants to submit their questions in writing or utilize the process for putting an item on the agenda.”
If citizens cannot go to their elected officials without first going through what is undoubtedly a filter, then who is truly representing the people?
That very few individuals attend most public meetings may have something to do with the extra burdens placed upon citizens. A citizen should not feel as if their speech is of such low concern as to merit a three-minute time limit for hearing an issue, or that the board “may require” a citizen to meet with intermediaries (district staff) before addressing the board. (Note: the OSD time-limit policy is five minutes though they had been limiting individuals to three minutes as stated in the video below.)
The school board at the Ozark School District has questionable requirements, even going to so far as to suppress the speech of their own members through requiring points of order in order to address citizens and calling for the question before sufficient time to discuss the issue has occurred. Citizens have a right to hear the speech of others, as well as to speak.
At an October 2023 board meeting discussion regarding addressing citizens in a public meeting, it was decided that individual board members must first address the board president for permission to speak with a citizen. If you watch the whole discussion, it becomes clear that the board intends to keep tight control of not only citizen participation, but of the board itself. Watch the discussion (prompted at 12 minutes):
....
If you have attended an Ozark school board meeting, it becomes clear that the tight control is not because there are routinely violent, or otherwise inappropriate outbursts (although the News-Leader reported boardmembers accusing the public of such things.) If you watch the online board meetings, it is clear the board as a whole is not comfortable with any type of disagreement, even with other board members.
Attorneys, in particular those of the Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) have been involved. At about 34 minutes in, Patty Quessenberry, who is running for re-election to the school board again after serving for 27 years and who is currently the president-elect of the MSBA, even mentions that the board has conferred with an attorney about the new policy they are discussing.
At 39 minutes in
Quessenberry actually asks how to proceed if one of the dreaded
outbursts happens but she hasn’t noticed
it happened. Board Member Christina Tonsing even mentions she has not
heard a lot of what the other board members claim are outbursts.
The discussion then goes on to what certain audience members said or
didn’t say, whether it was rude, and whether the board members had
actually heard what they thought they heard.
Board Member Guy Callaway suggests that some of the citizen comments were misconstrued by not only board members, but others in the room. Apparently, board members are conferring with others present, many of whom are school employees.
This is some nasty uprising from citizens, eh?
In November's meeting, a citizen questioned the board about an incident that occurred in October, when a citizen was removed from the meeting in violation of the board's new policy. See his comments here (video prompted). You will see the board attempts to shut him down:
The ever present timer rings while he is still speaking. He was the only public speaker for the meeting, which is very common. No one responded to the citizen's comments. The board moves right on to the next agenda item. It is as if he didn't exist.
It isn't until Board Member Christina Tonsing brings up the issue some time later that it is addressed. If she had not brought it up through the Community Engagement Plan on the Agenda, it would not have been referred to at all.
At approximately 1:04:00 in the video, Board Member Tonsing requests the Community Engagement Plan be pulled from the Consent Agenda, so it can be discussed. The board seems reluctant but Tonsing is allowed to share her views on the plan and how it came about, and she makes a connection between that and the issue of public comments in her quest to have the item pulled from the agenda.
Also, please note that though the transcript repeatedly states it is Board Member Amber Bryant speaking, it is actually Tonsing. The item was pulled from the agenda and Tonsing asks the board for their responses. Crickets, except for Guy Callaway who felt that the board had done their duty to solicit community engagement, of which there was apparently very little. The motion is quickly approved to accept the consent agenda.
At the December 2023 board meeting, a very important subject comes up, that of due process for teachers. Board Member Tonsing begins to make a case for modifying the MSBA's proposed changes in district policy, as it may violate the "federal process" for teachers going through a suspension or termination process. (It is helpful to read the transcript of the video clip.) The proposed change reads:
"The fourth potential change/addition in policy - A member of the community has requested the following be placed into policy: Teacher and staff discipline - Any administrator, teacher, or staff of the district who is disciplined has the right to fair treatment. Therefore, any performance improvement plan presented to a district employee must be presented to the board at the next meeting by the superintendent. The superintendent will establish a timeline for the improvement required and update the board monthly on the employee's progress or lack thereof. Further, no Notice of Deficiency will be presented to a district employee until that employee has been invited to a board meeting to be heard and the board has approved the notice. At the hearing, the superintendent must present the failures of the Performance Improvement Plan in correcting the employee's shortcomings, including a summary of follow-up on the PIP."
In a clip from the board meeting (see below), which was recorded by the Ozark Schools Support Team and is not available at the district's YouTube Channel (interesting, eh?), you will see Board Member Bryant quickly shut down discussion by 'calling the question,' which is typically used when debate and discussion has been extensive. In this case, the board immediately voted to accept only the changes that had been proposed by the MSBA, completely suppressing any discussion.
The public was given no chance to hear a response or discussion of the issue, even though Ozark School District has an elevated turnover rate of teachers, with some controversial personnel decisions in the recent past. The board shut down Tonsing and simply voted the changes as recommended by the MSBA.
In conclusion, there are a myriad of ways that public boards suppress free speech. They do the voting public a great disservice by attempting to control narratives and stop discussion of matters that are of interest to citizens. Indeed, by limiting the free exchange of ideas, on both the part of board members, as well as citizens who have a right to speak, these publicly-elected boards undermine their communities and the well-being of their constituents.
It should stop.
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
The Missouri School Borg Association
By Gretchen Garrity
The Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA), a private quasi-governmental organization whose purpose is to assist Missouri school boards, recently held their 2023 Fall Delegate Assembly.
The MSBA works in conjunction with other state-level professional organizations and alongside the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to implement top-down agendas that are not only in direct conflict with local control, but seek to implement and advocate for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Critical Race Theory (CRT).
With a 2023-2024 revenue budget of over $12 million (some of which is in the form of federal tax dollars), the MSBA is a powerful presence in Missouri schools. According to their own explanation, “Since 1936, MSBA has been the unified voice of school board members throughout the state.”
Why would school board members in Ozark want to have a unified voice with school board members in St. Louis or Kansas City? Why would local school board members want a unified voice with those in any other locale for that matter? One unified voice for all Missouri school board members is not local control.
It
is centralized control.
From: Fed-Space
Just the tip of the School Borg, the MSBA is a full-service provider:
“MSBA offers Basic and Full Maintenance policy services to our member districts. Our team of experienced policy editors and lawyers will work with your district to develop policies that drive excellence.”
If you look at MSBA-member school boards across the state you will indeed see a uniform structure of policies and guidelines that are amazingly...unified. Certifications, training, resources, personnel, financial services, business connections, education safety, emergency operations, and legal aid are some of what the MSBA offers. It’s a one-stop shop that makes it easy for school boards to justify paying membership fees that reach into the thousands of dollars annually.
If your local school board is seeking a new superintendent, the MSBA is happy to provide candidates. The MSBA’s school board policies also hand over most of the school board’s authority to superintendents.
In the video below Ozark School Board members Amber Bryant and Guy Callaway at the Nov. 16, 2023 Ozark School Board meeting, advocate for school personnel control by the superintendent and not the school board. Involving a new position, that of Human Resources Executive Director, discussion included who the new director would report to. Board Member Christina Tonsing suggested that the board might have oversight over this employee and not the superintendent. She reasoned that if there was an issue with the superintendent, there was nowhere for staff to resort since the position would be under the direct supervision of the superintendent.
This policy puts the superintendent, an employee of the school board, in a position of authority so complete that there is little to no recourse for school employees who may have issues with the superintendent. Board member Amber Bryant stated, "The only person who reports to the board is the superintendent." Callaway concurred. "I don't think they should report directly to the board," he said.
Interestingly, Bryant is the human resources director for Christian County. She reports to a "board," the citizen-elected Christian County Commissioners. Why wouldn't the elected Ozark School Board provide for a similar personnel structure? They have voluntarily given their authority to a non-elected individual. It is well known that Ozark school employees have been victims of this structure in the past. You can read about them here.
The board minutes show how the vote went.
Readers should know that the policy Bryant stated is simply that, a policy. It does not have the force of law. The school board could easily adopt a policy that allows for certain other employees to report to the board, thus placing ultimate authority in personnel matters to the board and not the superintendent--a non-elected position. Here is the Missouri Statute regarding how school boards govern.
The video below is prompted to the discussion at around 47 minutes:
Thanks to Ozark Schools Support Team for providing the video.
This is what 18 hours of MSBA training will get taxpayers—school control in the hands of administrative staff and not the elected school board.
It is organizations like the MSBA, working alongside state government agencies, that have created a veritable Borg system of rules, regulations, and guidelines that drain away local control, and put power in the hands of state-level trade organizations and often handpicked administrators instead of elected board members.
Unfortunately, it is often school board members who are unwilling to utilize their authority for the good of the students and staff that allow for the MSBA to control what happens in local schools.
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| Guy Callaway & Patty Quessenberry, Ozark School Board members |
MORE ON THE MSBA BORG
The MSBA Assembly is held annually. Member delegates gather to confirm the MSBA’s annual budget, its advocacy position proposals, give reports, adopt the agenda, and other business. Although the MSBA is a voluntary organization, it rules school board members through a maze of guidelines and regulations that are enforced on the local level by ignorant and/or complicit school boards.
Throughout the MSBA’s 2023 delegate handbook is a constant drumbeat for increased taxes. In fact, in their first policy proposal, the MSBA advocates for “Adequate and Equitable Public School Funding...MSBA supports increasing state revenues available to adequately fund public education by bringing certain taxes on tobacco, e-cigarettes, imitation tobacco or cigarette products, recreational marijuana, alcohol and alcohol-related products, and internet sales to a level consistent with the national average.”
Regardless of the desired tax on marijuana and internet sales, the word “equitable” is the word to focus on. This is the term that Marxists use to take money from one group and distribute it to another group. Now just remember, that approximately 75% of property taxes go to fund public schools in our local school districts. But this isn’t enough for the MSBA. They come right out and say this about the current tax on tobacco products:
“The recreational marijuana-specific tax rate is not currently used to fund public schools. The Missouri Constitution specifies that the taxes are used for a) administration costs, b) the costs of expunging criminal records for marijuana-related offenses, c) costs of health care and other services to military veterans and their families, d) to increase access to drug addiction treatment, overdose prevention education, and job placement, housing and counseling for those with substance use disorders, and e) to provide legal assistance for low- income Missourians through the Missouri public defender system.”
The MSBA wants to take tax dollars away from military veterans and their families, treatment for drug addiction, and other programs for low-income Missourians. You can’t make this stuff up.
The handbook then moves on to the MSBA’s advocacy positions. We will focus mainly on the highlights of their advocacy positions that involve centralized control. Within the verbiage the word “equitable” or “equitably” occurs at least five times regarding the funding of public schools. The MSBA:
Supports legislation to “fund state and local programs to eliminate disparity in achievement among all students.” (Utopian silliness.)
Supports legislation to provide “relief” to school districts that have a “significant amount of tax-exempt property. (Like churches and some job-providing businesses?)
Urges an increase in state funding “to allow districts to provide free early childhood education programs.” (You can say good bye to small independent childcare businesses.)
Supports a state program to provide “low-interest loans to school districts during difficult financial times.” (In addition to the bonds and levies that taxpayers already provide?)
Supports a “constitutional amendment permitting the increase of a school district’s bonding capacity to 20 percent. (Let's help the taxpayer accrue more debt on the school's behalf!)
Supports legislation exempting “public school districts from paying state motor fuel tax for fuel consumed by school buses.”
Supports an increase in the state motor fuel tax in Missouri!
That’s just some of what you will find in the delegate handbook. It must be noted that the MSBA also desires to have government control over tax abatement projects, including: “School boards shall have legal standing to participate in all phases of the process, including any legal appeal relating to any tax abatement application for property located in the school district...School boards shall have veto power over their portion of any tax abatement project.”
Let’s ponder that for a moment. The MSBA wants school boards to be able to have legal standing over a city or county’s tax abatement processes, including having veto power. I wonder if our tax assessor and other elected city and county officials know about that. This seems like an outright usurpation of the authority vested in other elected officials.
This is the bloated, centralized tick that is sucking tax dollars from wherever it can and attempting to accrue political power wherever it can.
Moving on, the MSBA:
Supports “legislation mandating accurate real property assessments and practices to ensure comparable assessments and practices throughout the state.” (So much for local governance.)
Moving quickly through the positions, the MSBA also advocates for a state accreditation system that forces any schools that receive state funding to be under the system.
States student curriculum must be inclusive to educate the whole student. This is DEI language.
Says local districts can come up with goals and objectives for learning as long they meet state and national standards, but then says the local districts are not allowed to prohibit or mandate specific curricular content. (Doublespeak. Schoolspeak. Centralized control of curriculum.)
Wants standardized kindergarten readiness tests.
Advocates for state licensing requirements to all public preschools, as well as full certification for all Missouri preschool teachers.
Advocates for a single, statewide reporting system to be funded, for “safety” reasons.
Advocates for a State school safety coordinator.
Advocates that all students MUST attend school until 18 or a diploma.
Wants to require homeschooling parents to annually report to the school district where their child(ren) reside.
Wants more control over releasing information regarding emergency operations, school safety hot line, and to have limited financial penalties when schools “inadvertently” break the law.
Photo: Giant Freaking Robot
Ozark School Board Member Patty Quessenberry, who has been a board member for 27 years, is also the president-elect of the MSBA. She has recently spoken of the MSBA in glowing terms. She has been assimilated. She is most likely running for another term on the Ozark School Board.
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Local Schools are not Locally Governed
Over at Ozark Schools Support Team, you will find an analysis of the Missouri School Boards Association's (MSBA) Advocacy Positions for its upcoming annual conference on Nov. 3.
The Delegate Assembly Handbook is a revelation of third-party entity control, including the state and federal governments. The MSBA is a private, non-profit organization, yet it wields immense control over local school districts whose school boards are members of the Association.
The MSBA's advocacy positions push hard for more centralized control of schools. You will read such things as:
"Under Tax Credits on P. 4, the MSBA calls for the capping of "potential reductions of state revenue." They even support suspending "issuance of all tax credits until the statutory funding obligations of the state are met." What do you wanna bet the taxpayer would never see another tax credit implemented?"And this:
"The MSBA's advocacy positions go on, P. 3. The organization supports giving school districts more options for "raising local revenue, including sales taxes." Yes, they now want a piece of the sales tax pie. I hope local elected officials are aware."
And this:
"In fact, the MSBA thinks school boards should have legal standing when tax abatement programs for residential building projects are considered, to the point that they may "participate in all phases of the process...[and] shall have veto power over their portion of any tax abatement project."
Go read the shared notes here. You have to read it to believe it.
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Your Vote Matters
By Gretchen Garrity
At the May 30, 2023 Ozark School Board meeting, a small but significant event occurred that illustrates the importance of electing the right people to serve on the board.
Although the sound and video quality is poor, the meeting can be seen below, and the issue begins at around the 38-minute mark, when the Missouri School Boards Association’s (MSBA)-recommended policy changes were next on the agenda.
According to the time-stamp notes on the recorded video, “Supt presents package of revised policies from the MSBA, explains that District staff reviews those policies then makes recommendation to board to approve them with suggestions...”
Per school board policy, agenda packets should be available four days in advance of the monthly meeting, but the packet was not available until late on the Friday before Memorial Day, a three-day weekend/holiday. This meant the board would need to look over their information packets during the holiday weekend in order to be ready for the Tuesday meeting start at 4 p.m.
Consequently, a small but important recommendation was nearly rubber-stamped by the school board. It involved what looked like minor changes in policy text, but these and other similar changes were sprinkled throughout several of the over twenty documents the school board needed to review.
The changes for policies included replacing pronouns like “he/she”
to “they” or “their.” In one striking example of bending over
backwards to exclude pronouns that indicate “he” or “she” was
this below. The green text is the new change. The text to be replaced
is in red with a strike through. Click on the image for better clarity.
To recap:
1) Board members were given access to the board packet late on a Friday of a three-day holiday weekend.
2) Administrative staff previously reviewed the packets before sharing with board members, and recommended that the MSBA changes be adopted into the Ozark School District policy handbook “with suggestions.”
a) Either the staff members did not review the packets,
b) The packets were reviewed and approved because administrative staff approved of all the changes,
c) Administrative staff did not notice the changes as problematic, or glossed over them.
3) One board member noticed the changes that smacked of a creeping gender ideology being inserted into the policy handbook, and mentioned it at the meeting.
4) The school board did the right thing when the issue was addressed.
Several things stand out:
1) Why is the Missouri School Boards Association sending packets to the administrative staff to review ahead of the meeting instead of to the Ozark School Board?
2) If the MSBA is sending recommended policy changes to the school board, how and why is the administrative staff getting access and reviewing them before the board?
3) How often has the school board simply taken the recommendations of the MSBA and the administrative staff as adequate and consequently rubber-stamped policy changes that are under their local purview?
One alert school board member was able to avert an insertion of, at best, poor grammar into the policy handbook. At worst, it was an attempt to begin inserting gender ideology into official documents.
Elections matter.
There are two seats on the Ozark School Board that are coming open in 2024. The deadline to file as a candidate is December of this year.
Sunday, August 20, 2023
Ozark Schools Support Team presents alternatives
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| Photo: Christian County Trumpet |
From the Christian County Trumpet:
OSST wants Ozark R-VI to MSBA now, become independent
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Town Halls to Address Concerns with Ozark Schools
By Gretchen Garrity
The Ozark Schools Support Team is holding two town hall meetings on Thursday and Saturday at the Christian County Library, Ozark branch. The first meeting will be August 17, from 5:30-7 p.m., and the second will be August 19, from 9:30-11 a.m. The library is located at 1005 N. 4th Ave., in Ozark.
Topics to be covered include the top-down organizational structure that prevents local control, the role of administration members, how to best utilize school board members, the current audit petition, how you can get involved, and much more.
A small example of information from a brochure that will be available at the town hall meetings includes:
Ozark Schools spending has increased in the last five years from $63.3 million to an estimated $101.6 million for the 2023-24 school year.
The Ozark School District has at least $90 million in debt.
Building maintenance has been deferred
Teacher salaries are lower than nearby districts
RTWO spoke with a member of OSST, Ruth Downey, and asked her a few questions.
How do you get buy-in from a school board that has long operated under the current system? What would you say to a member if you had their undivided attention, but only for a few minutes?
The school board training that we have seen would seem to give the organization’s story with a slant and implies that all control is in the superintendent’s hands while limiting or ignoring the influence the school board has--with only a passing mention of students or students’ needs and priorities.
The training indicates that board members are not to interact with the public that elected them or give their personal opinion to anyone at any time. It is necessary for the parents and taxpaying community to become better informed as to what is going on in their district, not just what their students are exposed to or what is being communicated in the local press. The school has unlimited positive communication channels open to them, making it difficult to get information to people unless they are willing to look for it and network with those who are working to improve our schools and the education our students are receiving.
An example of this is the claimed graduation rate of 97.6% in Ozark schools, yet over 40% of our students are currently testing at achievement levels that are "Basic" or "Below Basic.” These terms mean they have a minimal or partial understanding of the material they are being tested on: Reading, Science, Math, and Language Arts. This implies that 40% are not work, college, or citizenship ready and are not prepared to function in the world today, much less prepared for what the future will bring.
It seems as if the children and their academic well-being have suffered greatly in the last few years. What can turn things around quickly?
The biggest problem we have seen is the pressure coming on school districts and school boards from state, national even international organizations with little or no awareness of this happening at the local level. School boards can change that by using the responsibility they have and asking more questions about these outsiders, and transparently sharing that with their local community, including the financial cost of some of these programs. These organizations are not locally based and many do not share our values and concerns for our families, short and long term. Doing this would allow local schools to be local and get back to teaching curriculum with content and structure learning for their students’ benefit.
There is a move in many different public institutions to move away from institutional accreditation for certain positions. Do you see that happening with school associations? Why or why not?
Like most businesses, staffing is a huge challenge within education. Missouri recently passed a law that lowered the requirements for substitutes allowing community members that are not certified to share their skills and experience while supporting local schools and benefiting students. Ozark schools have taken advantage of volunteers and tutors from the community as well.
Traditionally, licensing and certification has been a way to limit those who can participate in a given field and is often used by organizations to control who can and cannot participate. We have heard of teachers being threatened with loss of their certifications, their livelihood and way of supporting their family, if they do not conform to administration dictates. This is a harmful use of power. That said, there is a place for basic requirements for teachers; we are just not sure these requirements should be dictated by organizations on the state and national level.
It seems as if the schools ask for more and more funding, but scores keep falling. Why is that?
Schools keep increasing the number of non-teaching administrators with an average salary double that of teachers, while adding layers of administrative tasks on teachers. Teachers spend more and more time filling out reports, teaching values that may or may not be the values of Ozark and Christian County, and maintaining discipline and less time on content, comprehension and understanding. They are often required to use curriculum that limits what and how they can teach and frequently cannot use creative approaches that allow them to connect with their students in a meaningful way.
One suggestion, an easy one, is that the superintendent should not sit at the same table as the school board. Why is that important?
This sounds symbolic, but superintendents have been in the habit of literally running the meetings which gives the impression, particularly to the public, that they are in charge of the board, rather than that the school board is the legal authority in charge of the superintendent.
The school board has the authority from the State of Missouri to hire and fire the superintendent, which is not always apparent to the general public. In past meetings the superintendent has been in full control of the meeting as the superintendent already sets the agenda prior to the meeting, controls the information packet distribution to the board and the timing of it. This often results in insufficient time to digest the contents and supporting documents by board members and does not allow them to make informed decisions.
Most decisions seem to be already made prior to the open board meetings and the school board has little or no input and basically operates like a "rubber stamp.” Another simple thing to change would be to simplify access to information on the school's website. Other schools have much simpler lists that are easy to locate with budgets, financials, monthly reports, minutes and agendas going years back. Such access would lower the difficulty for the public to be informed and address issues as the agenda is again, controlled by the superintendent, and available to the public the minimum 24 hours required by law.
If the public wants to address anything not on the agenda (which they don't see until 24 hours before the meeting) it takes a minimum of a week and a visit with the superintendent to perhaps have that opportunity as the superintendent may or may not add something to the agenda. Ozark has promised to begin archiving the open school board meetings, something they have not been doing.
Anything else you would like to share?
Our teachers are devoted and among the best around and desire what is best for their students. Sadly, their ability to be creative and to teach is constrained by requirements and curriculum they are given by school administrations. They often work under trying circumstances with limited resources. Our children, our grandchildren, the students of every school, are our most precious resource and the future of our country. They deserve the best. It seems, however, that the current structure of the education system is serving itself and its goals while neglecting the education of students.
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For more information about the town hall meetings and the Ozark Schools Support Team:
Email: OSST65721@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OzarkSchoolsSupportTeam
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OzarkSchoolsSupportTeam
Website: https://www.ozarksst.com
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