Sessions Won’t Be on TV: Five Members Vote Against Televising Working Meetings

By Harry Franklin, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Ga.

Jun. 12–Muscogee County School Board work sessions will not be televised.

Five board members raised their hands to show they didn’t want the issue of televising the sessions carried to the full board next Monday for a vote, despite a plea by member Cathy Williams to televise them.

Williams said the public wants them televised and the cost would be well worth it, since most of the discussion on issues takes place at work sessions, not at regular board meetings. She said the public is entitled to see and understand why the board takes the positions it takes on issues of public concern.

She asked why this issue was singled out for a vote on whether it should be carried to the full board when a long list of other items did not have to be voted on.

Board members who indicated they don’t want to televise the sessions by raising their hands included Chairman James Walker, Brenda Storey, Philip Schley, Naomi Buckner and Joseph Roberson. Five votes is a majority of the nine board members.

Matters to be taken to the full board include:

–Appointments of personnel, including a chief information officer, Russell T. Clukey, who would be over systemwide technology. Board member Fife Whiteside asked whether Clukey’s college credentials had been checked out, including a doctorate in computer science he listed from Barrington University, Mobile, Ala. Whiteside was told that they had not, though his application had been reviewed. Clukey would be paid $117,000 annually. Superintendent John Phillips said he talked with superintendents of two school districts where he had headed technology programs and was told Clukey turned those programs completely around.

–Discussed at length the fact 69 students were withdrawn from six of eight Muscogee high schools due to their age, lack of appropriate credits or absences. Green and Buckner expressed concern that such students and their families be made well aware of available alternative programs so the students don’t wind up on the streets. Only Columbus High and Northside High had no students withdrawn for these reasons. Administrators were asked for a report on the numbers of students withdrawn from magnet programs because they did not perform well there or withdrew from them and were sent back to community schools.

–Discussed at length a Performance Learning Center being established at the Academic Success Center through state funds. Green wanted to know whether this program will bring in more students who need academic support than the school’s existing population. She was told it will serve a segment of students there initially who don’t fit in a special niche for special academic support, but that later on, it could be expanded.

–Final votes to be taken next Monday on the proposed general fund budget of $275.4 million and setting the property tax millage rate at 23.27 mills, the same rate as the board has maintained for years, and adoption of a $3.27 million capital projects budget for fiscal 2008.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Ga.

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