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Thursday, August 3, 2017

Plainfield Board of Ed in special meeting Thursday night



The Plainfield Board of Ed has called a special meeting for Thursday, August 3, in the PHS Conference Room for 7:00 PM. The notice includes the ominous "action may be taken" phrase (the agenda is here).

So, what action might be taken?

The Plainfield Education Association (PEA) noted on its Facebook page last Thursday (see here) that a tentative agreement had been reached on the District's new contract with the PEA. Is that the action to be taken?

Could be, if the agreement has been ratified by the PEA, but I've heard no word on that.

There are also two other weighty items of business that need to be resolved --
  • Hiring a consultant to help guide the Board through the search process, and

  • Hiring an Interim Superintendent.
Either of these options could be the "action" to be taken.

I have heard that Dr. Larry Leverett, the former Plainfield superintendent who recently retired as executive director of the Panasonic Foundation and now runs a consultancy in education matters is among candidates for the consultant contract for the search process.

Finally, a kvetch about the BOE's meeting practices.

A "special meeting" is not just an extra meeting or a meeting on a day other than the regular meeting day.

To call a "special meeting" means to take up a special item(s) that will not or should not wait for the regularly scheduled meeting. The Open Public Meetings Act requires that the notice for the meeting list the item(s) to be discussed so far as they are known.

For more on the subject, see the Digital Media Law Project's handy guide here.

So, why does the Plainfield BOE not conform to this protocol?


  -- Dan Damon [follow]
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