At the August meeting, recently elected School Board trustees Krista Barringer and Damion Ferraro continued to make waves, expressing dissatisfaction at the level of detail and timeliness of the information provided by the board leadership prior to regular meetings.
Barringer abstained from several personnel appointments, explaining she needed information about the appointees — not just names. Ferraro said board members should receive information packets detailing issues on the agenda of the next board meeting sooner. Currently they receive information the Thursday or Friday before the Tuesday meetings.
Barringer, who said early in the meeting she doesn’t take disagreements personally, abstained from a number of votes because she did not have as much information as she would like. She said she didn’t mean to micromanage, but she had a difficult time voting to appoint personnel based on name alone, with no resume or recommendations. Barringer abstained from votes that appointed substitute teachers, coaches, a provider of speech services and a coordinator for Academic Intervention Services.
Ferraro, who did not abstain from votes on any personnel appointments, asked whether it would be possible to send the board packets out to trustees sooner. He said it was challenging to get through all the information in just a few days.
Trustee Florence Hyatt agreed it would be helpful to have the information a day earlier.
Board President George Heidcamp said in his seven years on the board he had never heard a complaint about trustees not having enough time to review their packets. Vice President Thomas Ham echoed this, saying in spite of working 15-hour days, he has always been able to find the time to review the information because “that’s what I decide to do.”