New School Board Members Sworn in; Cooperation and Collegiality Rule So Far

Captions from left: Phil Hemingway, Chris Liebig, and Tom Yates. Note: Phil and Tom wore a dress shirt, tie, and suit jacket to the 9/22/15 board meeting. Chris wore a dress shirt.

On September 22, 2015 newly elected school board members Phil Hemingway, Tom Yates, Chris Liebig, LaTasha DeLoach, and Lori Roetlin were sworn in about 40 minutes after the board meeting began. The first order of business was to elect a president and vice president. Phil Hemingway nominated Chris Lynch as president. The vote was unanimous, 7-0, for Chris Lynch.

Chris Lynch nominated Brian Kirschling to be vice president and Phil Hemingway nominated Tom Yates to be vice president. The vote broke 4-3 for Kirschling. LaTasha DeLoach, Brian Kirschling, Chris Lynch, and Lori Roetlin voted for Kirschling. Phil Hemingway, Chris Liebig, and Tom Yates voted for Yates.

Despite the 4-3 vote, I was glad to see that Brian Kirschling deferred to Phil Hemingway on the question of the future use of pesticides on school district grounds. A motion was made to ban pesticides on school grounds. David Dude waved roaches in the Weber kitchen and other pests in front of the board, and LaTasha DeLoach expressed concern. A consensus emerged that a Wednesday pesticide meeting needed to occur without delay so that pressing pest problems could be taken care of.

Phil Hemingway asked that he and a friend, maybe more than one friend, be part of the committee. Chris Lynch allowed Hemingway and one friend, but not more than one.

Lynch scheduled a number of work sessions, “on-boarding” (his word, not actually a word) sessions for new members, a retreat for all board members, in a clear effort to run the board like a bureaucratese-heavy management meeting devoid of actual content.

Content actually came from three of the new board members: Phil Hemingway, Tom Yates, and Chris Liebig and from the lower-level administrators who gave reports on students’ health and fitness (the best one, I thought) and other matters. It was interesting to learn that only two-thirds of elementary students are in the healthy Body Mass Index (BMI) range. Phil Hemingway is clearly up on what’s going on with pesticides and herbicides and wants to give his input to the Physical Plant, where it’s most needed. Tom Yates wants reports that he and the public can see. Chris Liebig questioned why the current school board attorney is still on board and asked how long his tenure is expected to last.

I’m glad we have at least three new board members who actually question past policy instead of accepting the status quo. That’s what the voters wanted. It remains to be seen whether LaTasha DeLoach and Lori Roetlin will question the status quo. It’s only the first meeting, but so far, they haven’t.