Norwich’s Board of Ed debates observing negotiations

NORWICH – The Norwich City School Board had every intention of discussing the proposal to have board members act as observers in contract negotiations between the district and the Norwich Educators Association, but they did not intend to vote on the subject at last week’s meeting.

The item appeared on the agenda for the Oct. 7 meeting as a discussion topic and members of the board were prepared.

Perry Owen presented a list of proposed guidelines for the process that had been assembled with the input of the other six members of the board. The intention was to hand these guidelines over to the policy committee at Tuesday’s meeting.

Board President Bob Patterson reported he attended a New York State School Board Association seminar and had identified four other districts in the state with established written policies. He had even requested copies of those policies for Norwich to use in drawing up their own.

But board members Sally Chirlin and Priscilla Johnson had other ideas. Rather than follow the steps they had agreed to during the Sept. 19 meeting, they decided to push for a vote to allow observation to take place with little or no established guidelines, beginning with the next scheduled negotiation session.

Chirlin made the motion, but struggled to find phrasing. She went so far as to ask Patterson and District Clerk Margaret Boice to word it for her. It was put into the record that she made a motion “to begin observation of negotiations with a minimum of two people and maximum of three, beginning with the next negotiation session.”

Board members Owen, Kathy Coates and Patterson were outspoken against allowing board observers without a written policy in place.

While Owen said he was not opposed to the idea of developing a policy to govern board members as observers, he did not support the idea of approving Chirlin’s suggestion.