Purcell:  Don't Dilute Meetings Law

Monday, 10/30/06
Mayor vows to fight if Metro school board seeks exemptions

By AILENE TORRES
Staff Writer 

As the Metro school board pushes for some exemptions to the state's open meetings laws, Mayor Bill Purcell says he opposes them and would fight any such efforts in the state legislature.

"These are public positions and public dollars and we have been operating under these laws for two generations now," Purcell said Sunday. "I don't think this city or this state would tolerate going back to a time when the public's business was conducted in private."

Metro's school board wants to close employee dismissal and student discipline hearings and performance evaluations, including those of the district's director. It sent the suggestion to the Tennessee School Boards Association, which will vote on which resolutions to forward to the state legislature.

The schools director's performance review plays a key role in contract negotiations and for 2007 would include 15 established benchmarks that the board wants its director to meet.

As the law is written, any private citizen can attend the performance evaluation hearing. If the measure passes, the public would be prohibited from attending.

Marsha Warden, school board chairwoman, said its operations were transparent and would continue to be. However, the board is looking to be more sensitive to personal issues for employees and parents, she said.

"In no way, we intended to limit anyone's access to the performance of the district, and certainly the director's evaluation is a direct measurement of how we are doing as a district," Warden said. "I just don't know how many people have their personnel evaluation publicly scrutinized."

Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said private discussions of employee dismissals and performance evaluations could lead to a disconnect between the school board's decisions and the public's trust.

"The problem is when you talk about schools, schools are probably the most important expenditure of taxpayer dollars," said Gibson, a former Tennessean editor. "People with children in schools are concerned about safety and welfare or teachers being dismissed for certain allegations. To be able to resolve all that behind closed doors would make the public more distrustful of school boards and school officials."

The schools unsuccessfully challenged the open meetings law roughly 30 years ago on the basis of needing an exemption for personnel matters, he said. The latest effort would need the support of state legislators to be successful.

"The school board probably adheres more to the letter of the law than any other elected body," said board member Pam Garrett. "We're not asking for forgiveness here, we're asking for permission."

Purcell vows to fight any legislative support it gets.

"They are independent elected officials and they are entitled to their own opinion about this," Purcell said, "but they are spending our money and we should know as much about that as the law allows."

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10/30/06