BY DAVID VITRANO
L’Observateur

RESERVE — Near the end of Thursday evening’s St. John School Board meeting, tensions flared after the introduction of a seemingly innocuous agenda item.

The incident happened when School Board President Gerald Keller introduced a set of Board Operating Principles, which board members drafted while on retreat in March.

Keller said, “The role of the board has changed.” Accordingly, the proposed operating principles reflected that change.

There were six principles in total. Each principle had a numbered list beneath it outlining what exactly fell under the individual items.

Basically, the principles dealt with the ways in which the board must conduct itself with regard to student education and operating procedures. With the intention of making procedures more uniform and professional, they put forth such regulations as “Voice your opinion at the appropriate time and place” and “Encourage public to attend and participate in board meetings.”

Although the operating principles seemed logical and were generally accepted as such by the majority of the board, at least one board member had a different idea.

District 2 Board Member Albert Burl III introduced a substitute motion, which added a couple of amendments to the principles.

Burl suggested board members should forfeit their $800 per month salaries and benefits. He also asked for board presidents to be limited to one term to avoid stagnation within the board.

At that point Keller said Burl was out of order, citing the fact individual board members cannot change statewide legislation.

Burl retaliated, saying each school board has the right to decide for itself on such matters.

Ultimately, the motion was put before the board but was not seconded, so it was removed without a vote.

Burl then left the meeting room, returning briefly to gather his papers and saying he had somewhere to be and then leaving again.

Burl could not be reached for comment.

Board Member Matthew Ory said afterwards he was uncomfortable with the way the items were introduced. He went on to say he did not understand the rationality behind the amendments and would prefer such matters to be introduced to board members beforehand in a more formal manner.

Those present for the vote passed the unamended principles unanimously, but some of the other board members had a problem with the tone the meeting had taken on.

“We’re still a democracy,” said District 1 Member Russell Jack.

Patrick Sanders backed him up, saying, “I’m not opposing these items,” but continued by saying that policy only seems to be followed when it is convenient to do so, primarily being used to dismiss items that are disagreeable to those in charge.

Keller replied, saying perhaps things had not been done correctly all of the time in the past but would be from now on.