Our efforts are gaining traction towards bringing the Fox C-6 School District inline with other school districts in terms of transparency. These efforts have been nearly two years in the making. I would like to say thank you to the overwhelming support from the
community at the last two school board meetings. Showing up at board meetings is paying off. Our school board and school
administrators are starting to pay attention!
First Board Meeting Packet Published On District Website
For the first time ever, the Fox C-6 School District has published a Board Meeting Information Packet on the district website. This historic event
occurred on February 21, 2013. On that day, the school district
published the February 19, 2013 Board Meeting Information Packet that is
sent to school board members for them to review prior to the board
meeting. This is a significant accomplishment!
School districts are accountable to the taxpayer. In order to show they are being accountable, they must be as transparent as possible. When public entities are not transparent, it causes mistrust in the community and the citizens that they serve.
Even though I never received a response from our school board or our administrators regarding school board member email addresses or school board meeting information packets that I have asked for many times, I am glad to see that school board members now have individual email addresses and that the district is inching its way towards publishing the board meeting packets on the district website.
Currently, the link can be found on the Board of Education web page under the Contents section on the right side of the page. The link is listed as Board Meeting Packets. I am confident that this link will eventually change since it links directly to the February 19, 2013 Board Meeting Packet rather than a subfolder similar to the link to the Minutes for Board of Education Meetings. So, this will most likely change once more board meeting packets are posted.
What Was Missing In The Board Meeting Packet?
One of the most significant items that was missing from the Board Meeting Packet was the Check Payments Listing. Each month the BOE must approve the payments being disbursed by the school district. The BOE is supposed to be reviewing those payments to make sure that our taxpayer dollars are being spent prudently. Board members should be asking questions if they find questionable payments. Since the check payments listing did not make it into the packet that was recently published, I encourage you to contact your board members and ask them to please include them. It is much easier to contact your board members now that they have email addresses on the district website.
Previous Board Meeting Packets
For examples of what types of payments are listed in the Board Meeting Packets, you can download board meeting packets dating back to April 2010 from links on this page:
http://foxc6watchdogs.blogspot.com/2012/12/Fox-C-6-Public-Board-Meeting-Minutes-with-Attachments.html