Board members debated a number of issues with forming a committee, including the number of members, whether to have an independent facilitator and the committee’s charter.
With four of Cherry Hill Public Schools’ five bond referendum public forums now in the books, the board of education held a lengthy discussion at last Tuesday’s meeting on its next step: forming an ad-hoc committee.
Board member Carol Matlack, chair of the strategic planning committee, brought up the topic during a bond referendum update at the conclusion of the action portion of last week’s meeting. After giving a brief update on the status of the community meetings, Matlack discussed an administrative recommendation of what a bond referendum ad-hoc committee could look like.
Under the administration’s recommendation, the committee would consist of at least 13 members, including three BOE members, five parents of students from different age groups, three community members who don’t have students in the school district and two staff members, one being a teacher and the other an administrator. Lisa Saidel, Ruth Schultz and David Rossi will be the three board members on the committee, with Saidel serving as the chair. Matlack added there would be room for one or two more committee members and requested the committee include a township representative.
“We’ve worked collaboratively with the township on many issues, and I think it’s important to heard their voice in this process as well in a formal way,” Matlack said.
The recommendation also would have Judith Wilson, an education consultant who is moderating the community forums, act as a facilitator for the group. Matlack added the goal is to have the committee begin meeting in the second half of March after the last community forum is finished to analyze the data from the events as well as data from a survey the district plans to release on the referendum.
After Matlack outlined the proposal, the board engaged in a dialogue for nearly one hour as a number of board members expressed concerns. Board members Laurie Neary, Sally Tong, Edward Wang and Rossi all brought up a number of issues with the original plan for the committee.
One of the issues was the number of committee members. Wang felt it wasn’t appropriate to have a set number of committee members prior to soliciting applicants. Matlack mentioned the administrative recommendation had a maximum of about 15 members.
“The idea is great that we have members with kids on the committee, but on the other hand, if the bond is going to affect more parents or families, then I would say we shouldn’t just fixate on one number of how many people should be on the committee,” Wang said.
“If we have more applicants and they are qualified, we can enlarge the committee if necessary,” Wang proposed.
Tong agreed with Wang, saying she felt more community members should be involved to ensure the district was getting more voices involved in the process.
Other board members expressed concerns about enlarging the committee. Schultz noted the district has only had about 100 community members in total attend the district’s four public forums so far. She expressed doubts about the number of people who may want to get involved with such a committee.
“We do have to agree on a number,” Schultz said, “because it’s going to get very overwhelming very fast if we want to move this forward.”
“You cannot speak for other people,” Wang countered. “The community members that attended our meetings is 100. We’re talking about only eight from the 100. To me, we have a lot of people we could select.”
After a short debate, the board members came up with a compromise where they would look at the number of community members who apply to be on the committee and then discuss possibly adding members, though numerous board members, including board president Eric Goodwin, cautioned about having too large of a committee.
“We don’t have to settle on a number, but we know that if it gets too big, it’s going to be unwieldy,” Goodwin said.
Rossi brought up another concern about having Wilson as the facilitator of the group. Rossi suggested having the board members take the lead rather than some from outside of the community.
“Maybe the chairperson…would be a better person to lead it,” Rossi suggested.
Other board members disagreed, believing an independent facilitator was needed to keep the committee on track with its work.
“As chair of the committee, myself and the rest of the committee are going to do the heavy lifting and come up with a recommendation for the board,” Saidel said. “In my opinion, we look to Mrs. Wilson for just that, facilitation.”
Another concern was the lack of a written charter for the committee. While Goodwin stated the goal of the committee was to analyze data from the district’s community forums and upcoming survey to make recommendations on how the district should proceed with a future bond referendum, Neary felt the committee needed to have a charter stating its exact purpose.
“I think it’s helpful so that everyone knows they’re following the same set of guidelines, there’s no confusion after the fact and you don’t have to rely on just a facilitator who might guide the process of the meeting, but everyone understands exactly what they’re supposed to do when they get there,” Neary said.
After the long discussion, the board agreed to move forward with some modifications from the original proposal. The committee will start with having Wilson as the facilitator, but Goodwin said the committee could decide to not move forward or change facilitators later on. Goodwin also said a written charter would be developed for the committee.
“We will have a charter,” Goodwin said. “That’s what going to have to go out to recruit our community members.”
The school district has one last community forum on the bond referendum scheduled for Sunday, March 10, at 1 p.m. at Rosa International Middle School. The district also has plans to release a bond referendum survey to gather information from community members.
