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CAT Tracks for December 18, 2008
REGULAR BOE MEETING - MINUTES |
The Cairo Board of Education held its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, December 18, 2008. Below is an annotated agenda to serve as minutes...
CAIRO BOARD OF EDUCATION
CAIRO SCHOOL DISTRICT NUMBER ONE
REGULAR SCHOOL BOARD MEETING
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2008
6:00 P.M.
AGENDA
I. Call To Order - 6:00 p.m.
II. Roll Call - Brown, Stubblefield, Gooden, and Burris.
III. Examples of Excellence - Bennett Principal Pickett reported on the essays that students in her school wrote for American Education Week in November...entitled "If I Were Principal". Principal Pickett presented the BOE members with copies of the edition of The Cairo Citizen that reprinted the essays.
IV. Recognition of Guests/Comments From Public And Employees - None
V. Approval of Previous Minutes - Motion made, seconded, and passed.
VI. Approval of Agendas - Motion made, seconded, and passed.
VII. Approval of Treasurer's Report - Superintendent Swopes read the totals for the record. Motion made, seconded, and passed.
VIII. Approval of Payment of Bills/Payroll - After a brief period of questioning and uncertainty concerning answers, a motion was made, seconded, and passed to approve.
IX. Informational
As was reported in the pages of the local "rag"...Superintendent Swopes went to Atlanta for a Black Educators' Conference in November when the BOE went to Chicago for the annual IL School Board Conference. (It turns out that BOE Member Brown accompanied Superintendent Swopes...which I guess explains the $4000 tab for the trip. It had seemed outrageously high for one person...) At the time, I believe the rag's editor (yes, moi!) wondered aloud if the Superintendent would make a report on his "workshop" upon his return. Since he doesn't read such "rags", it must be coincidence, but report he did!
Mr. Brown came prepared with a 12-page handout - Education is a Civil Right", which he distributed to BOE members and the members of the audience. Mr. Brown gave an oral overview of his handout. (Maybe this is why he was agitated about teachers who attended workshops making report upon their return!?) Superintendent Swopes followed up the remarks by Mr. Brown with a video "The Journey to Justice"...an account of the struggle for equality in education from the days of slavery, through Plessy v. Ferguson, through Brown v. Board of Education, to No Child Left Behind and the current achievement gap.
Editor's Note: I found nothing objectionable about the video...it was well done. I was quite familiar with most of it...having taught Black History for several years at CHS. (I actually had the pleasure of drafting the first syllabus for an African American History class at CHS...urging that it be taught by an African American who might have greater credibility with our school population.) Many of the scenes in the video were part of the "Eyes on the Prize" series that I showed in my class. My only regret/concern is that material of this nature would be shown as if it were something new...that us home-bodies are a bunch of rubes...and if white, a bunch of rednecks. Most folks in Cairo are VERY familiar with matters of race relations. Many of us LIVED the civil rights struggle in Cairo...Cairo was the great northern civil rights battle field in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We may be country bumpkins, but we do know a few things about race and discrimination, possibly more than our big-city cousins since it was much more personal!
As I have detailed on julieanewell.com, being white, I have had the "pleasure" of being accepted/invisible to whites expressing their stereotypical negative views of blacks. Dating and marrying a member of the opposite race in a racially divided area (long before anyone quibbled or questioned whether someone like Barack Obama was "mixed" rather than simply another black man), I had the "pleasure" of being VERY visible...raising the ire of whites AND blacks. And, due to my marriage to a black woman, I have had the "pleasure" of being accepted/invisible to blacks expressing their stereotypical negative views of whites. Folks...racism is ugly, no matter its color. Anyone who would cast stones needs to first of all take a long look in the mirror...
I will have to say that the presentation began with a moment of unsettling déjà vu...as Superintendent Swopes again cited Martin Luther King Jr. and his remark that anything that makes children feel helpless and hopeless is an act of violence...part of his racially tinged remarks at the now infamous October 2nd joint Cairo-Meridian BOE meeting. However, this time (are we slowly making progress?) Superintendent Swopes stopped short of singling out white teachers as the culprits, allowing one to infer that "anyone" (of any race or color) who "failed to teach children" (of any race or color) was guilty of committing an act of violence against the children. After this moment (of defiance? of explanation?), he quickly moved on...
Superintendent Swopes concluded his part of the "Atlanta Presentation" by reporting that he and his sister had conducted at session at the conference, entitled "Sensible Discipline"...showing part of the Power Point Presentation.
The joint presentation took approximately 30 minutes and more was promised in February as part of the Black History Month celebration.
$200,052.61 - State Aid _1st Payment- Oct.
X. Closed Session - The BOE voted to enter closed session at 7:23 p.m. The BOE voted to exit closed session at 8:37 p.m.
XI. Requiring Action/Decisions By Board of Education
XII. Other - Set Date for Special Meeting - January 5, 2009, at 6 p.m. - Purpose to discuss collective bargaining.
XIII. Old Business - None
XIV. Adjourn - Motion made, seconded, and passed to adjourn at 8:50 p.m.
1,697.00 - Title VI Rural Education
200,052.61 - State Aid- 2nd Payment- Oct.
67,423.00 - Title I Low Income
24,466.69 - Federal Lunch
13,973.72 - Federal Breakfast
13,049.07 - Personal Property Replacement Tax
10,019.87 - Final Loss Payment- Fire Loss
50.00 - Rent - First Student Transit
Pending Litigation
a. Accept Resignation of Zach Schumacher - Scholar Bowl Sponsor - (Jr. High) - Motion was made, seconded, and passed.
b. Employ Ronnie Woods - Jr. High Scholar Bowl Sponsor - Motion was made, seconded, and passed.
CLOSED SESSION IS FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONSIDERING INFORMATION
RELATIVE TO THE APPOINTMENT, EMPLOYMENT, PERFORMANCE OR
DISMISSAL OF INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEES WHICH MAY BE OF A TEMPORARY
CONFIDENTIAL NATURE, STUDENT DISCIPLINE, PLACEMENT OF SPECIAL
EDUCATION STUDENTS, DISCUSSION OF LITIGATION PROBABLE, IMMINENT,
FILED OR PENDING AND COLLECTIVE BARGAINING OR RELATED ISSUES.