In an attempt to fast-track its twice-delayed vote on a school redistricting plan, the Akron Board of Education intends to consider a policy change on Wednesday that could remove public comment requirements before future redistricting votes and change who the district is required to notify about any changes.
The redistricting plan has been discussed since last fall, but the matter was pulled from the agenda at the last board meeting on March 11 because holding a vote then would have violated district policy, Board President Diana Autry said.
The policy requires that a first reading on a redistricting vote be held 30 days after a public notice is sent to the parents and guardians of every student in the district. It requires two more readings before the vote.
Superintendent Michael Robinson sent a letter to students and their families Feb. 27 outlining the plan.
At a Monday meeting of the board’s Legal, Contracts and Board Policy Committee, a member of the district’s legal team laid out a proposal that would remove the 30-day requirement and subsequent readings, allowing for an immediate vote on the redistricting plan at Wednesday’s specially called meeting.
The proposal also removes a requirement for public notice of any proposed changes, instead only requiring notification to the “parents/guardians of current Akron Public Schools students.” And it eliminates a requirement for public comment on the second and third readings of the redistricting proposal.
It also changes the every-four-years requirement to a periodic review of attendance areas and district needs.
Robinson refused to answer questions about the proposal, saying, “We followed everything.”
Autry said she wants to ensure that the community is involved but thought the current policy wasn’t serving the board well.
“We’re not trying to cut the public out,” she said of the proposed changes. “We’re not trying to cripple ourselves, either.”
She said Robinson went out of his way to get community feedback and wanted residents to be involved in the redistricting process.
The redistricting proposal
The redistricting proposal would close Firestone Park Elementary School, redistributing students there to other elementary schools, and move STEM High School to Robinson Community Learning Center, sending its students to other schools.
It would also ease overcrowding at Harris-Jackson CLC. And Robinson’s announcement of a planned full-day pre-Kindergarten program could lead the district to keep Stewart and Essex early learning centers open, though the board had earlier agreed to close them.
The changes will require the district to reopen open enrollment options for affected students, renovate Robinson CLC for high school use, reassign teachers and determine new bus routes, among other changes.
The amount of work required, the legal representative said, amounted to an emergency for the district — allowing the policy change.
But Rene Molenaur, a board member who chairs the committee, questioned whether the emergency designation was appropriate. It’s defined as “any situation or set of circumstances which the Board has reason to believe will close the schools or jeopardize the safety or welfare of the students or employees of the District.”
“This item was taken off the board agenda twice,” Molenaur said. “If this was an emergency, why wasn’t this on our agenda? I’m surprised to hear it’s an emergency after a month of being taken off the agenda.”
Additionally, Molenaur chastised the administration for bringing the policy proposal to a committee days before an intended vote by the board, saying it sidestepped the intended process for making policy changes.
“This is not a courtesy to present it to the committee,” she said. “It hasn’t gone through the public. The part of the policy that is crossed out is the part that involves the public.”
Board Member Barbara Sykes said she didn’t want to delay the administration’s work, but she had concerns that the district’s rules weren’t being followed.
“I want to understand why this was not done in the first place,” she said of following the existing policy. “It is just not clear to me.”
Autry said the policy was silent on whether every change to the redistricting proposal — and there were several — required a new first reading.
Now, Autry said, the vote needs to be moved forward because the district is “at a standstill” waiting to be able to act on the redistricting proposal and the work that needs to happen after a vote.
“It wasn’t intended to throw a monkey wrench in the process and I think it did,” she said of the current policy. “Now everything’s kind of frozen.”
