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Monday, July 23, 2012

Starr Releases Confidential Memos, Exposes Secret Agendas

On June 15, 2012, we asked Superintendent Joshua Starr, as Secretary of the Board of Education, for Agenda and Minutes of Board meetings where union contracts were discussed.  Board member Laura Berthiaume had stated that she had not been a part of the discussions of the union contracts, and we wanted to find out when the meetings that Ms. Berthiaume missed were held. 


34 days after we made our request, the MCPS Public Relations office forwarded the documents shown below. 


To our surprise what was released were Confidential Agendas for Closed Board of Education sessions. No minutes were provided to accompany these Agendas.


Confidential Agendas for Closed Board of Education meetings?  Why is the Board of Education seeing a different Agenda than the Closed Session Resolution that is released to the public?  Remember, in order for the Board to go in to a Closed Session they must first meet in the Open and vote to go in to a Closed Session.  The public has the right to observe the discussion of the Board when they decide to go into a Closed Session.  


But, what these documents show us is that when the Board of Education discusses and votes to go into a Closed Session, they are looking at a different Agenda than the Resolution that has been released to the public.


For example, the Board of Education released a Resolution showing what they would discuss in a Closed Session on November 8, 2011.  But, as you can see from the Confidential Agenda shown below, the Board of Education is given a little more information in their Agenda than what is released to the public.  The public was not informed that the land acquisition discussion concerned the Northwest Cluster, nor did the public know that the litigation being discussed involved Mr. Maravell.


Is keeping the Agenda for a Closed Session a secret in compliance with the Maryland Open Meetings Act?

2012MPIA

1 comment:

  1. Interesting topics:
    "Quarterly Sexual Harassment Report" (Are they having to do this because of some settlement/consent order of some kind? How many organizations produce a specific "quarterly sexual harassment report"??????

    SC et al v. Jerry Weast, district court decision. Another special education case perhaps?

    "Strategies for presenting" the capital budget and capital improvement program. What's this, they are already trying to figure out how to "sell" it to the public?

    More information is needed on these topics.

    ReplyDelete

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