Mobile County school board reviving committees that former superintendent abolished School Community

Mobile County school board reviving committees that former superintendent abolished

Written by Mitchell Steiner on January 21, 2012 – 9:02 pm

Now that hes retired, the board is poised to bring those committees back.

The five-member school board will vote at a meeting Thursday whether to revive 10 committees, which is one committee fewer than it had in 2008.

Each panel would be led by one board member and have a second member serving on it. With two members on each committee, the board will not have a quorum and therefore will not be able to take any official votes.

The committees would meet once every three months, and would call additional meetings as needed, said school board President Levon Manzie, who has come up with the list of committee assignments. Each board member would chair two committees.

Meetings would be open to the public, board members said. Interim Superintendent Martha Peek and a board attorney would attend all committee meetings, as would the relevant school system staff.

During a work session Thursday, board members said that without the committees theyve felt out of the loop on a lot of the measures theyve been asked to vote on. They said they often have had to table items with which they werent familiar during the boards regular, once-monthly meetings, until they could get more information.

“Our current format does not lend itself to us receiving information,” Manzie said. “We must have access to the staff.”

Nichols, who retired in December, was vocal in his goal to put an end to years of board micromanagement, which landed the entire school system on probation about 10 years ago. Besides eliminating the committees, he cut the number of regularly scheduled board meetings down from two a month to one. And he prohibited board members from asking questions of his staff directly during public meetings.

Board members said reviving the committees is not a form of micromanagement; rather, the committees are tools to help them do their jobs.

School boards set the policies of a school system, but superintendents are responsible for daily operations.

“Were not attempting to micromanage,” Manzie said. “Were trying to have a format where we can ask questions.”

Board member Ken Megginson, who was one of only two current board members who served prior to 2008, warned that the committee meetings are time-consuming.

“If you think you can come for 15 minutes and leave,” Megginson said, “thats not going to happen.”

But, he added, the committees are very informative.

The other committees would be: intragovernment; policy/legal; safety and security; school and community relations; school facilities and land; student services; and technology.

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