Methuen Public Schools, Massachusetts
From Sunshine Review
Methuen Public Schools is a school district in Massachusetts.
[edit] Methuen Public Schools
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As a school district resident, parent, teacher, student or taxpayer, you need to be able to adequately gauge whether your school district is:
- Effective.
- Competent.
- Frugal with tax revenues.
- Honest.
- In compliance with all expectations and relevant laws about public records and open meetings.
That means you need to be able to find key pieces of information on your school district's website.
[edit] Information that should be available on website
[edit] Budget
The school district website should include comprehensive budget information.
- The budget for the current fiscal year should be posted online.
- Budgets for previous years should be posted online.
- It should be very easy for people to find this information when they visit the website. This means that prominent navigational features enabling someone to locate the budget should be included on the homepage of the website.
- Graphic features that compare the current budget to past year's budgets should be incorporated, to enable people to make sense of trends over time.
- Narrative features should be incorporated into descriptions of the budget. For example, if the current year budget is 1.2% higher, or 5% lower, or 14.7% higher than the previous year's budget, it is helpful to citizens to provide this comparative explanation at the beginning of a summary about the budget.
- Definitions of technical terms and explanation of legally mandated formulas are useful.
[edit] School district government meetings/agendas
The school district's website should disclose all school district government meetings and agendas.
- Posted,School Committee Calendar 2008-2009
- No Agendas Posted.
- Whether the meeting is open or closed is not clearly stated.
- School Committee Meetings are televised and rebroadcast. One needs to look at Main City Website under Government Channel tab to find schedule. Schedule
- No notice whether public input is allowed at the meeting and, if so, what the rules are that govern public input.
- Minutes of meetings are posted online. See Minutes to the Meetings:
[edit] Who are the elected officials of the school district?
The school district's website should disclose key information about the school district's elected officials--the members of the school board or board of trustees.
Methuen School Committee
Missing Information
- Terms of office and date of next election not listed on site. See Election Calendar 2009
- The website Does not indicate their party affiliation.
- Financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest statements required of elected officials are not posted online.
- Committee appointments are not listed. (i.e. School Building Committee)
[edit] School district administrators
The school district's website should include a section providing full transparency about the major administrative officials of the district. This would include the school district's superintendent, and other key administrative officials if relevant. The information that should be provided includes:
- Not Posted. A copy of the contract between the superintendent and the school district governing the terms of his or her employment, including salary information, job expectations, severance provisions and so on.
- The website provides contact information about how to reach key school district administrators.
See Directory of Administration
Missing email contact information.
[edit] Lobbying/advocacy
- If the school district enters into a contract with a lobbyist or lobbying firm, full details of this arrangement must be posted on the school district's website, including the name of the lobbyist or lobbying firm, the amount paid to the lobbyist or firm, and the legislation that the lobbyist is advocating for on the taxpayer's dime.
- If the school district pays dues to belong to any taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, full details of these arrangements should be included on the school district's website, including the name of the association, the amount paid in dues, and an identification of what positions that lobbying association is taking with the money it has received from the school district's taxpayers via the dues paid to it by the school district.
- If the school district gives grants to non-profit organizations, these grants should be disclosed on the school district's website with a reason for the grant and information about who in the non-profit organization is responsible for oversight and administration of the funds it has received from the school district's taxpayers via a grant from the school district.
[edit] Access to government records and public documents
The school district website should include comprehensive information about how citizens can obtain access to public records in the custody of the school district.
- When a citizen wants to file an open records request, which employee handles those requests?
- What is that employee's contact information?
- The school district website should provide this information in a very easy-to-locate position on their website.
- The school district website should lay out the procedure for a citizen to follow who wants access to public records.
- The information should be user-friendly.
- The school district website should include an annual rating of its FOIA compliance: How many requests did it receive in a given year, how many did it comply with, the average time required for compliance, and reasons for denials. If the school district is currently being sued for failure to provide public documents, this information should be included.
- If the school district has been ordered by a judge or public records ombudsman to provide documents it refused to produce in response to a public records request, this information should be a permanent record posted on the school district's website.
[edit] Contracts with teachers and support staff
The school district's website should include a section where it provides comprehensive information about, and copies of, the school district's major contracts with employee organizations (unions) entitled to bargain collectively on behalf of teachers other instructional staff (e.g., school counselors) or on behalf of other employee groups (e.g., support personnel like classroom aides, secretaries or custodians).
Contracts with employee organizations typically account for at least half of total districts costs and, like construction programs, commit the district to maintaining agreed-upon payments over many years. In states where unions representing teachers have the legal right to strike, district websites should also include information on contract negotiations and proposed terms of future contracts, including:
- Number of years the contract is proposed to remain in force
- Salary schedules
- Summary of health care benefits
- Retirement incentives (bonuses, continuing health care coverage)
- Days per year/hours per day worked
- Tuition reimbursement
- Other personal benefits
- Assessment of union dues for non-union members
[edit] Contracts with vendors
The school district's website should include a section where it provides comprehensive information about, and copies of, the school district's major contracts with vendors and suppliers.
It is important to avoid insider-dealing when a government is entering into contracts. Even at the local level, contracts can be for amounts in the tens of millions of dollars.
Contracts should be awarded to whichever corporation or individual can provide the highest quality work in the most cost-effective way. It's important to avoid granting contracts based on:
- Patronage
- Campaign contributions.
- To friends and relatives of members of the governing commission that ultimately approves all contracts.
The school district's website should inform residents about:
- Rules governing contracts.
- Bids and contracts for purchases over $10,000.
- Information about vendor campaign contributions to the school district's elected officials (school board members or trustees) should posted with contract information.
Examples of contracts that should be made publicly available on the school district's website include district's contracts with builders, suppliers, service companies such as those that provide bus transportation, catering or janitorial services, any contracts with private vendors for utilities, contracts with labor unions, etc.
[edit] Tax burden
The school district's website should include information about taxes:
- Information about all taxes levied by the school district.
[edit] Criminal background checks
The school district's website should include:
- Comprehensive information about its policies regarding conducting criminal background checks of staff employed by the school district.
- The policies should include information about how often criminal background checks are conducted and what procedures the district follows when it learns of past or current criminal conduct on the part of school district staff.
[edit] Academic performance
The school district's website should include information about the district's academic performance.
- What standardized tests are administered to students in the district?
- How do the scores on those tests taken by students in the district compare to students in other districts in the state, and nationally?
- How do the scores on the tests taken in the current year compare to the scores historically within the district?
- If there are other methods available within the state to comparatively assess the academic program and any weaknesses or areas that need improvement, that information should be included on the website.
[edit] School conferences
The Massachusetts Association of School Committees and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents held a joint conference in November of 2008 for school staff. "Methuen sent the most personnel and racked up the largest tab of any local community, according to a review of public records." $4,566 was spent by the city, which included conference fees, meals, mileage and lodging. City councilor Joseph Leone is displeased by the expense to the city, saying "I'm a little disappointed at the lack of judgment that spending $5,000 in light of talk about teacher layoffs and police layoffs and fire department layoffs and cutting school aid and (imposing) user fees. Whatever the purpose was for the conference, if they felt there was an overriding need to go, I think they should have paid their own way."
Methuen sent five School Committee members — Barbara Grondine, Kenneth Henrick, George Kazanjian, Mayor William Manzi and Robert Vogler — and three administrators — Superintendent Jeanne Whitten, director of pupil services MaryEllen Kelleher and interim business administrator Frank Colvario to the conference. The records show that Grondine and Vogler did not seek reimbursement for meals, and several members carpooled. Manzi and Colvario did not seek reimbursement for their hotel rooms. [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ↑ Taxpayers fund school officials' meals, lodging at conference, The Eagle-Tribune, January 4, 2009
