Sparta BOE swears in new members

BY AMY BATE
SPARTA — The Sparta Board of Education held a reorganization meeting on Jan. 4 in which three new board members — Karen Scott, Jack Surdoval and Linda Curcio — were sworn in.

The primary duty of the members is to formulate bylaws and policies, including rules by which the board meets, operates, sets its agenda and conducts its business. Due to continually changing membership, it is important to have good board policies to provide direction and continuity for the educational process.

Each member is assigned to one of four committees including Finance, Operations, Curriculum and Personnel. These committees meet once a month before the regular meetings to formulate the agenda.

Superintendent Dennis Tobin announced Resolution RE 01-16 regarding Code of Ethics that the board has adopted Robert's Rules of Order as the official parliamentary procedure manual to be used to conduct meetings. Robert's Rules provides "common rules and procedures for deliberation and debate in order to place the whole membership on the same footing and speaking the same language."

In the public participation portion of the meeting, Carey Anne Gluck-Bomensatt, who ran but was not elected to the board, addressed a few concerns. The first was the school/district policy regarding absences of students. Bomensatt questioned that if a child is sent home sick with a fever by the school nurse, why the next day is not considered an excused absence — especially if the policy is that a child is not to return to school unless they have been free of fever after 24 hours without fever-reducing medication. Superintendent Tobin said that the student attendance policy will be reviewed.

Bomensatt's next issue was the "transparency" of the Sparta BOE in terms of their own absences from monthly meetings. She stated that she reviewed the sign-in sheets as well as meeting minutes and noticed "errors". Bomensatt said there appears to be a "loophole" in that the policy regarding board member attendance which states that a member is not to miss more than three consecutive meetings. She said that according to her review of attendance during last year's meetings, some members missed seven out of 11 meetings, She asked why this same courtesy regarding absence is not extended to students who are sick.

Karen Scott answered that members attend many other committee meetings in addition to regular and executive sessions. Tobin said that the board will review the policy on meeting attendance.

Bomensatt's last concern was that she noticed that her previous comments have not, according to her, been documented in the public meeting minutes.

For more information visit www.sparta.org.