MLS early release and mixed busing off School Board agenda

About a half-dozen parents showed up at the School Board meeting last night to inquire about changes in the school bus schedules and reports that Mills Lawn School release time was being moved up to 2:40 p.m. after the Christmas vacation. They also voiced their displeasure at the lack of transparency regarding the decision making process.

In response to parents' questions, Schools Superintendent Norm Glismann admitted that earlier this week, without prior notice to parents and without consultation with the School Board, experiments had been conducted by combining some bus routes to see if it would result in savings. According to Glismann, the experiments have been stopped, because on at least one route, students from the Career Center were required to sit on the bus at MLS for an inordinately long time waiting for the younger students to be released. He said that he was unaware of the situation where, on Wednesday, Mills Lawn kids had been bussed to the Career Center, before being taken home.

The proposal to move MLS release time up to 2:40 has been tabled for now, and apparently, if it ever comes up again, will be required to go through the normal process of public notice, where it would be given two readings before coming to a vote by the Board. Earlier yesterday, Glismann denied that it had been pulled off the agenda in anticipation of a large number of parents coming to the meeting. At the meeting he said that the teachers had requested that it be tabled while they worked on other proposals.

According to Glismann, "There will be no changes for now."

Attempts by some of the parents to nail him down on what he meant by that statement were futile.

In response to parents' concerns that they had no notice of the 2:40 release time coming up for discussion, Board members referred them to the Board's website, where the agenda is supposed to be posted in advance of the meeting.

It appears that parents are frustrated by Glismann's continued efforts to combine the teacher planning time and mixed busing issues, as if one cannot happen without the other. It is clear that the whole issue is teacher driven and Glismann finds himself between a rock and a hard place, because planning time was negotiated into the recent teacher contract without any specifics and now the MLS teachers are pressing him to come up with a plan.

Putting an exclamation point on the meeting, Board Member Richard Lapedes said that parents better get ready to accept the fact that sometime in the future the economy will dictate that older and younger students be bussed together.

"It will happen," Lapedes said.

In view of the fact that Glismann said there will be no more open meetings on these issues, parents are advised by the Board to keep an eye on the School Board Document Site to check the agenda for the next meeting. But if you go to the Website, you will find that they are woefully behind in posting the agendas and minutes. What good is it to post the agenda after the meeting?School Board meetings are usually held on the second Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. If in doubt, call the board offices at 767-7381. Information on how to contact individual board members is on the Board Website.