On March 22nd, School Board Members, Superintendent and Superintendent’s staff participated in a board ‘retreat’ at Silverthorn Country Club from 10AM to 3:30PM. Concerns arose over potential Sunshine violations due to the district’s failure to publish a public notice for the training session.
At the Regular School Board meeting on April 11th, School District Attorney Dennis Alfonso commented that it was less of a retreat and more of a board training program, which was discussed at a public meeting months earlier “and several dually noticed public workshops.”
Board Members Naverud, Johnson, Guadagnino, Prescott and Duval were all present along with Superintendent Romano, Deputy Superintendent Michelicka, Executive Director of Academic Services John Stratton, the Executive Director of Business Services Heather Martin, Public Information Officer Karen Jordan, Executive Director of Support Services Sean Arnold and General Counsel Dennis Alfonso.
Dan DeWitt, Tampa Bay Times reporter attended the afternoon session.
Attorney Dennis Alfonso explained that no actions were taken by the board on agenda items for the team building session. He stated that the exercises in essence were practice for future analysis of the strategic plan.
“Although official publication of the notice was inadvertently not published in the Tampa Bay Times, as is typically the practice. In order to ensure transparency and to cure any unintentional potential violations of Florida Statute 286.011, I’ve asked that this matter be placed on the agenda this evening for notice to the public,” said Alfonso.
The sunshine law only requires notice of public meetings where there will be discussion of upcoming items that will be voted on. The idea is that the public gets to see a large portion of the deliberative process of the officials. It would not be a violation of the sunshine laws for the board to get together for team building as long as they did not discuss matters that were to come before or are likely to come before the board. In general many board members decide to error on the side of caution and try to avoid being seen around each other to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
Board Member Linda Prescott emphasized the importance of the training session to improve leadership ability and move the district forward. Prescott explained, “I have recently been going to the Florida School Board Association training. They do provide training to new school board members, which is integral to the success of the new school board member coming on and one thing I learned as a new board member, it’s very hard to develop a leadership team when as you know we’re governed under the Sunshine Law and this… board training that took place on March 22nd was a way for us to come together as a leadership team for the board to actually get to know each other…” She explained that a particular slide at a different training session made an impression on her. “It was a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is an analysis of studies that have been done and there is a direct correlation between leadership among school boards and superintendents and how districts actually do in terms of how they are measured. The higher the leadership ability within the school board and the superintendent, the district performs much higher. So having this leadership [board training] I think is very important. As a new school board member, I do want to work with my other fellow school board members to help move this district forward as I do with Dr. Romano our Superintendent. It is my responsibility in terms of moving the district forward to work with my fellow board members and Dr. Romano.”
Chair Naverud found objectionable the word retreat. She clarified that its usage in this case meant that they were not at school district headquarters. “The meetings have always been publicly noticed. The notice was missed I believe because of our Spring Break. The offices were closed. The assumption was made that it was sent. In the past, we have noticed meetings and the Times in fact forgot to publish it. You know, it was human error. There was no lack of transparency. We had a board training. We went through master board training a year ago. We went to look at doing the master board training again and it was extremely expensive. We found this to be a more prudent use of our money and it was a way for us to come together to learn how to interact… and learn about the district’s staff work. A lot of times you have board members come in and we haven’t worked in this field, yet we’re supposed to guide and help and support and question the work of the professionals that are in this field. And coming together in these retreats or trainings, it allows us to see their side. What they’re doing, why they’re doing it and we’re able to come together as a team.”
A comment from the public expressed concern over the venue of the training due to the expenses associated with Silverthorn Country Club.