By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
During a joint Feb. 9 meeting of two Waterford Graded School District board subgroups — the Technology Committee and the Policy and Curriculum Committee — officials backed a plan to record open-session WGSD meetings and place the contents online.
The committee members’ recommendation will go before the full School Board for an expected final and definitive vote at the next regular meeting Monday, Feb. 23.
The idea of recording committee and board meetings was raised in a district meeting held last month.
In recent years, WGSD open-session proceedings have been recorded by resident Matt Kranich and posted online to his website, www.wgsdmeetings.com. Kranich is running for a seat on the School Board in the Feb. 17 primary.
Besides providing information about board actions, Kranich and other posters offer opinions – and often sharp criticism of the school board – on Kranich’s website.
At the most recent regular board meeting in mid-January, concerns were raised that some community members might mistakenly assume Kranich’s site is affiliated with WGSD.
In a heated exchange with Kranich at that meeting, board member Dan Jensen referred to Kranich’s page as a “garbage blog site” and said he would like to see it “wither and die on the vine.”
Discussion on the topic this week was civil, and no critical comments were raised Monday night. But committee members agreed to continue pressing on to forge their own video repository of information.
“The overall question is what the intent or goal is behind this,” Superintendent Chris Joch said as he began the discussion with committee members.
Several logistical questions were hashed over during the joint committee-level discussions. One aspect under consideration, for example, is where the videos would be presented. A proposal on the table is to place proceedings on YouTube and create a link through WGSD’s website.
But Kannan Heath, WGSD’s technology administrator, said there also is sufficient bandwidth on the district’s own website to place the videos.
Another question hashed over was how long the videos should be stored and archived on the site. Time lengths of as minimal as 90 days to as long as several years were among the parameters discussed.
Joch noted the videos would not be an official record of the meetings, and statutorily there is no requirement on how long the videos would need to be stored. As with all governing bodies, written minutes will continue to serve as the official proceeding of what transpired at each meeting.
Several committee members asserted the videos could serve a beneficial purpose.
“It’s good to have something to look back and refer to, versus looking through thousands of old board minutes,” board member Tom Hoffman commented.
In a separate, but related, issue, the two committees also put their weight behind a plan to go digital with meeting documents. Plans are in motion to contract with a software company, Board Docs, and place meeting packet materials online.
As part of the proposal, agenda items discussed in open session would be placed on the district’s website for residents to view.
The Board Docs plan — which includes a $1,000 set-up fee and $3,000 annual usage fee — also will be taken up by the full board later this month.
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After having video recorded every single WGSD regular, committee, special, and annual school board meetings for almost two years, I am very excited to see the school board finally take on this responsibility.
The main reason I decided to start filming the school board meetings was to let the community see Mr. Jensen for what he is. From day one he played right into my hands by not only objecting to me video taping the meetings, but then trying to insist that I sit far away as to not get a good angle of the board on camera. He has also failed to make sure the microphones used by the school board are in good working order. Meeting after meeting people struggle to hear what board members are saying.
More importantly, the wgsdmeetings.com web site has Mr. Jensen on video making one mistake after another. He steadfastly opposed the 4K program for months even after I showed him and the district administrator how it will save us hundreds of thousands in tax dollars. He wanted poor kids qualifying for a free and/or reduced lunch to have to stand in a separate line and receive a “different” lunch from all of the other kids. Probably his greatest disservice to our community was the fact that he stood by idle for over 2 years while one excellent teacher after another left our district to work in surrounding communities. He had ample information provided through the district’s own exit interviews and two comprehensive staff surveys that overwhelmingly told the story of a district administrator that had ruined staff morale. What an incredible disservice to the children, families and taxpayers of the WGSD. You can watch all of this for yourself on the WGSDMeetings.com we site.
So, it is no wonder hat Mr. Jensen considers this web site “garbage”, but as all that have ever watched a school board meeting know, it his Mr. Jensen’s garbage alone that we will soon be happy to be free of.
I am glad we are finally doing something about the School Board doing the meetings themselves. As a resident that doesn’t attend the meetings but reviews them online, I find myself visiting this site for the videos. I don’t however, like to view the site for the political angle I find on it as well.
I find it slightly irresponsible for the paper to list a website promoting a school board member right before the election on Tuesday. This article could have been released in next weeks run, instead of listing the information and in essence driving interested parties to a candidates website.
Matt, you talk about getting Dan Jensen, how petty does that make you. I would have thought the noble thing was to record these meetings to allow the residents to view what is happening. It now just appears that you are doing this to GET SOMEONE. Don’t know if you know it or not but I believe you aren’t running against Dan anyways.
Not knowing whom I was going to vote for on Tuesday, I guess I can now remove someone ,you, that isn’t in it for the kids but for revenge off of my potential candidates list.
Mr. Kranich’s comments aside, Mr. Jansen has served his constituents well. Voters, please do your homework on all of the candidates for school board. After researching, it will become obvious who will serve us in a fashion that is consistent with the community’s conservative values.