Rochester school board considers changing rules to limit individual trustee requests

By Jennifer Pignolet, The Detroit Information

The Rochester Group Faculties board will vote Monday on a bylaw modification to ban particular person directors from requesting paperwork or data straight from the administration.

Any trustee desirous to know one thing that has not but been supplied or is public, from a finances doc to scholar traits knowledge, should search a consensus of a majority of the board to make the request.

The proposed change is an effort to restrict the variety of data requests from the superintendent, board advocates stated on the November assembly, particularly aimed toward limiting the “voluminous” requests from one board member.

Trustee Jessica Gupta proposed the change, which the board debated within the first of two required readings on the Nov. 17 board assembly.

“Sadly, we’ve seen that present language permitting particular person directors to request paperwork is an abused privilege, losing precious district employees time and informing a piece surroundings that doesn’t maximize the retention of precious human sources,” Gupta stated.

By requiring majority board approval, she stated, “the board may make an knowledgeable collective determination and guarantee broad public debate and consensus selections.”

Different members of the seven-member board confirmed their help, although some admitted they have been reluctant.

“I am not loopy about this alteration,” stated Trustee Jayson Blake, noting that he had voted towards the same proposed motion final 12 months however now believed it was vital.

“It’s the quantity, the element and the incessant quantity of requests which have created an issue for our employees and for our administration,” he stated.

The requests come from trustee Carol Beth Litkouhi, who has served on the board since 2022. For the lately accomplished superintendent assessment, Litkouhi stated she submitted 34 requests for paperwork or knowledge units, from HR practices to a few years of information on the variety of college students needing educational intervention.

Litkouhi, who had additionally beforehand sued the district over entry to a curriculum, fought again towards the concept that her requests had gone overboard.

“I requested 34 objects on the time as a result of it’s a actual analysis, it requires actual knowledge,” she says. “The higher query I’d have is why did not the remainder of you do that?”

Litkouhi stated the transfer would forestall members of a minority faction on the board from “stopping unbiased oversight.”

All trustees would retain their potential to submit a request for data by the identical course of obtainable to any member of the general public.

Brad Banasik, authorized counsel for the Michigan Affiliation of Faculty Boards, stated particular person board members haven’t any authorized authority to request data outdoors of the general public data course of.

“A person board member can not give directives to the superintendent, they don’t have the authority to do this,” he stated.

Banasik stated many boards and administrations may have working relationships during which affordable requests from one board member will probably be granted.

“What we inform the board members and supervisors is that that is additionally lots about relationships,” he stated. “When you have a relationship together with your board and you are feeling comfy realizing {that a} board member isn’t going to abuse the method to acquire data or paperwork from the administration or the superintendent, then there’ll possible be a back-and-forth course of.”

If a board member “crosses the road,” he stated, and it takes up a lot of a director’s day to meet the requests, “I feel in some unspecified time in the future the board has to say, the board must get entangled on this and restrict this particular person’s requests.”

Boards are required to have bylaws, which dictate the conventional processes of the board. Violation of the bylaws may result in censure, Banasik stated. Boards should not have the authority to dismiss any of their very own members. Solely the governor can do this.

The Rochester board already lately censured Litkouhi on one other concern and likewise eliminated her from her committee assignments. Litkouhi printed an op-ed within the Detroit Information in October concerning the Oakland County faculty board’s demand to place an “enchancment millage” on a poll subsequent 12 months, data that had not but been made public. Litkouhi argued that the general public had a proper to know.

In an interview, Litkouhi, who graduated from Rochester faculties, stated she lately moved her personal youngsters to a neighboring district as a result of they weren’t challenged sufficient in Rochester.

“There’s been a decline and I feel it is due to the complacency that is happening,” she stated.

Litkouhi stated that previous to the superintendent’s analysis, the board president requested all members to submit an inventory of knowledge or paperwork they want to see to assist them full the analysis.

“Having the data means that you can ask higher questions and discover out what is going on on,” she stated.

Litkouhi stated she believed she supplied the required supervision.

“I strived for educational excellence, transparency and accountability,” she stated. “And proper now the board isn’t doing its job of accountability. They’re truly doing the precise reverse. They’re tying the board member’s arms in an effort to offer transparency.”

One colleague took her facet on the November assembly. Trustee Shelley Lauzon stated it was “completely insane” from a logistical standpoint to require a board vote earlier than a board member may obtain data. They solely meet each two weeks, she famous, and even much less usually in the course of the summer time.

“I really feel prefer it slows down the method, particularly relating to present paperwork, issues that exist already,” she stated. “I simply do not perceive why we give the chairman of the board energy over everybody to find out what’s vital and what’s not vital.”

Lauzon stated the measure appeared “extremely retaliatory towards one trustee.”

“I really feel prefer it’s an try and silence the opposition and by limiting what questions and paperwork we, a trustee, can ask,” she stated. “We have to open up council governance and encourage clear communication, not attempt to limit and management it much more than it already is.”

Board Chair Michelle Bueltel stated that was not what occurred, however that “these adjustments are supposed to strengthen efficient governance.”

“As a board, we collectively decide the imaginative and prescient, function and route of the district, not as seven people working independently,” Bueltel stated. “When particular person directors make frequent or in depth doc requests with out board route, it distracts administration from their day-to-day obligations, creates a reactive Whack-a-Mole surroundings, and may considerably burden employees time.”

Bueltel, who referred to as Litkouhi’s requests “in depth,” stated the change will be sure that “the circulation of knowledge is coordinated, focused and linked to our shared priorities.”

“It reinforces that oversight is a board duty, not a person duty, and ensures that the circulation of knowledge stays focused, coordinated and aligned with our strategic work on behalf of our college students,” she stated.

The board will meet Monday at 6 p.m. on the Rochester Early Childhood Training Middle, 3838 N. Rochester Street, Oakland Township.