During the six and a half hour Grants Cibola County School Board meeting, one of the items they discussed was: Timed Agendas and Meeting Preparedness, proposing different strategies to enhance the effectiveness of future board meetings.
President Francie Lee started the discussion by mentioning the letter she sent to the rest of the board in June that “was talking about how, as a board, we could become more productive, [and] more streamlined.”
She has been to multiple training sessions, one recently that “talked about doing timed agendas. This doesn’t limit board members participation and being able to comment and ask questions, it simply is dialing in the time spent on those to allow board members to be more productive… get more things done and I think one of the things that we have learned over these last couple of meetings is that we have a lot of policies that we’re [going] to be implementing… Part of getting through these meetings is [having] to be… more efficient with our times and so I would love to have feedback on the board about timed meetings.”
Though most of the board was hesitant to comment, board member Dr. Guy Archambeau said “I think we need to do a self assessment… meetings so that we do talk about all those [as a] board… We do have an instrument within our policy manual. I don’t know if it’s that good, but I think the whole notion of board meetings… whether or not [we can fit the] material… [keeping it] comprehensive. [A] self assessment of ourselves so we can sit down and talk about [it].”President Lee explained “We’re here to talk now.”
The agenda packet created by President Lee and Superintendent Widner which included a draft that gave three or five minutes for speakers, would be adjusted accordingly with each presentation.
“When we see our agenda items, I think we kind of know that it’s the evaluation instruments that take a long time.” Dr. Archambeau went on to say “I think it would be ideal if we can [finish] by [no] later than eight, preferably seven.”
“I’d be happy 7:30 [or] 8:00, but again [we have to] line out the time so we can stick to it… That’s why this is a suggestion.” Lee explained “The research I did with other districts is that they put… on the sample agenda, which is in the work session, it says call to order, pledge of allegiance not to exceed five minutes… That[’s] readily doable. So all of these other boards are saying not to exceed, so if Mr. Widner was having… a presentation he would say… this presentation is going to be eleven minutes and then we would have nine more minutes for board comments where each board member could have… a couple of minutes for that, but not to go an hour and forty-five minutes for one item. So that’s the request or the suggestion here is that we’re making these , we’re not taking away the opportunity for board members to talk but that falls in with the preparedness that if everybody has read the presentation material and everything like that, questions or comments would be [quicker].”
“We’re productive within the first couple of hours.” Vice President T. Walter Jaramillo stated. “We were elected to do this, but we just need to be more efficient, streamlined. I don’t mind being here, but it’s a good idea because the conferences… do say and they stay on target too when they have those conferences… So we can learn to be on time. Like I was saying we’ve got to put the hammer to it and just learn to do it.”
“I’m happy to have office hours for board members to talk on Friday… or Monday afternoon.” Lee offered “Then some of these questions could be asked and then when then when the presentation does happen, its streamlined… whatever wasn’t answered or addressed in that presentation [it] would allow more detailed specific questions to be asked and addressed in the meeting… There are a couple of districts that have one meeting a month and they’re done in an hour and a half… That was mind-blowing to me. But the idea behind a preparedness acknowledgement is not anything more than just the board saying ‘I have received the data.’” She went on to explain that “there have been so many meetings that we have come to where we have heard… ‘I didn’t get that. I didn’t see that. I didn’t read that.’… we’ve all been there in some way.”
Having a calendar similar to what many other districts have, was suggested, as they have it finished the week prior to the meeting. Having an explanation for the complex agenda items that could include more information with the presentation so the board isn’t confused and need to ask more questions was mentioned.
Dr. Archambeau stated “If you’re going to make a presentation but there’s no action then what’s the purpose for us to hear [it]? Is it building knowledge about something that we don’t know about? Is it just reporting events that he’s participating say like to the legislature and he reports back, we have to say to ourselves that should take about five minutes.”
Roxie De Santiago, who had spoke earlier in the meeting, spoke up saying “Madam President, members of the board, just for the purposes of your discussion, you’ve been discussing time agenda meetings for twenty-five minutes now and I do believe that as president and under your board policy that you could try this at the next couple of meetings as your inherent authority as a board president in running a board meeting to see how it goes.”
Lee decided. “Thank you… We can try.”
As the Board of Education moves forward the practice they choose could not only benefit the board members, but the presenters and viewers as well, as it intends to enhance the overall efficiency and output of educational governance in the community.