School Board panel struggles to address perceived conflicts
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff Writer
After a public and heated discussion a month ago about just who should serve as citizen representatives on the Burlington Area School District various School Board committees, it seemed only a matter of time before the district tried to define what should be official policy.
On Monday night, a vote to change the policy to exclude spouses of elected board members from serving as citizen representatives failed, though another difference of opinion on the matter was aired.
BASD Superintendent Peter Smet said at the Policy Committee meeting Nov. 26 that he brought the policy up for discussion with no specific changes in mind.
“Several people brought this up to me to be reviewed,” he said.
As it stands now, the specific policy in the BASD book says that citizen representatives can be included on the Long-Range Planning, Buildings and Grounds, Community Education, Curriculum, Finance and Policy Committees, with no more than two citizen representatives per committee.
It also specifies that no one person can serve on more than one committee in the same year, and that citizen members will have full voting rights.
The fact that any one committee could include two members from the same family – namely husband and wife – caused a stir when Julie Koldeway and Bonnie Ketterhagen applied for citizen representative positions. Both women saw their husbands elected to the board in April, and have been at every meeting since.
While several board members felt a conflict of interest could arise with that situation, Phil Ketterhagen and Roger Koldeway both raised further issues, saying there were other possible conflicts of interest, including one person employed by a board member applying for a citizen representative position, and former board member Susan Kessler applying for a citizen rep spot as well.
At Monday night’s meeting, there was actually discussion on whether the citizen representatives continued to serve any purpose at all – something Board Member Bill Campbell openly questioned.
“I think it’s caused more damage … that can possibly be gained by it,” Campbell said.
By way of contrast, Phil Ketterhagen said, “I don’t understand the fear that’s going through this.”
Burlington High School teacher Karen Brenneman added an opinion that teachers should not be excluded, since teachers no longer have the right to negotiate for anything other than wages.
“Why would teachers not be allowed?” she asked.
Roger Koldeway added, “You could have the discussion of anyone who works for the district,” as a conflict of interest.
Kessler, who was appointed to the policy committee last month, eventually made a motion – as suggested by Board President David Thompson – to change the wording so spouses could not be appointed.
It was seconded, but there were not enough “yes” votes to ratify the motion.
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