Our board has traditionally ignored and violated their own governing policies, but seems intent now on instead of violating policy, changing it to align with what they’re going to do anyway. The latest policy under examination is GP-5. Proposed changes are to the first sentence of the policy, which currently reads:

Board members must represent the interests of the citizens of the entire school District.

In the last board meeting on 2/8/23, Witt did a first reading of the proposed change, which he suggested should read:

Board members must represent the educational interests of the students and families as first priority, as well as the citizens of the entire school District.

We expected the board to do their second reading, and vote, on this policy change in the 3/8/23 meeting (as stated in the agenda). Instead, David Illingworth offered forth a different proposal for GP-5:

Board members must represent the interests of the citizens of the entire school District, while always recognizing that the district exists solely to educate children and that parents retain a fundamental constitutional right to direct their children’s education.

Anyone reading the posted agenda would have expected a second reading of the policy change proposed by Witt in the last meeting. The fact that no board members appeared surprised (there was zero discussion on it when prompted by President Rusterholtz) by this change of plans does further suggest more discussion is happening outside of the public eye.

This policy change furthers the stated focus of the board to be academics only. The board is intent on cutting all Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs and denying any grants (and thus calling into question continuance of any programs/classes funded by those grants). It remains to be seen how the board will view art, music, and athletic programs.