Homeless encampment clean-up and past board dysfunction discussed at Talawanda board meeting

Administrators at the Talawanda School District are planning to address an abandoned homeless encampment at Kramer Elementary this year.

At a July Board of Education meeting, Board President Rebecca Howard said the district was notified by the Oxford Police Department that homeowners with property next to Kramer were concerned about a homeless encampment on school property. The encampment had generated a "tremendous amount of trash," Howard said. She wanted to look into long-term solutions to protect the safety of students and staff by preventing unhoused people from living on school property in the future.

During a meeting Aug. 8, superintendent Ed Theroux said he had met with the Kramer Principal and the Oxford Chief of Police to discuss the best path forward.

The approach Theroux and others settled on involves two phases. First, the district will hire a company to clean up the site. While multiple community organizations had volunteered to help, Howard said the district can't accept volunteers in this case because of potential biohazards.

After the site is cleaned up, Theroux said the district plans to revamp and widen a set of trails in the woods on Kramer's property.

"We used to have Kramer students go out there, but all that is overgrown now," Theroux said. "We want to put back trails and make them wider. One, that will be a deterrent for people trying to camp because they will be seen. Second, it will be easier to see into it."

The agenda for Thursday's meeting initially included addendums to the superintendent and treasurer's contracts, but those items were removed. At last month's meeting, the board passed raises for administrators but did not include either the superintendent or the treasurer at the time.

Tensions at past meetings lead to call for change

At the start of the Aug. 8 meeting, David Annable, co-president of the Talawanda Educators Association, addressed the board, saying the dysfunction at other meetings this summer has been embarrassing for the district. He recalled meeting with a newly hired teacher this summer who told him her previous district's board meetings seemed calm in comparison to Talawanda.

At the past two board meetings, members of the public and the board have sparred over personnel issue. In both meetings, Scotty King, husband of board member Dawn King, has accused administrators and board members of misconduct. During the July meeting, some board members pushed back on what they called personal attacks and harassment.

Annable said he's heard from other union leaders worried that people are attending board meetings to "make intentionally divisive and bad faith statements and paranoid accusations." Some worry that the board seems to "indulge these bad faith actors," Annable added.

In future meetings, Annable said the board should refocus on the work of educating students rather than "micromanaging" some issues and spending time on divisive interpersonal conflicts.

"We had a reputation as a district that was a destination for talented educators and families who wanted a quality educational environment," Annable said. "Now our reputation is becoming one for board discussion and paranoia. I know I'm not perfect, and I don't claim to have all the answers, but I know we can do better and achieve more as a district."

After Annable's comments, Scotty King returned to make comments for his third meeting in a row. He read from a responsive record to a request he made detailing an interaction between himself and Theroux, described by an eye-witness.

Howard suggests changes to public comment, board skeptical

At the end of the meeting, Howard suggested a procedural change to board meetings, moving public comment to the end of each meeting. Currently, members of the public are allowed to speak between presentations and board items, and each person is limited to three minutes to comment.

Howard said she'd heard from several people in the past few years who suggested the change. It would allow Talawanda staff who are required to attend the business portion of each meeting to leave earlier and give the public opportunities to hear from the board in advance of asking questions, Howard said, potentially helping to answer some questions before they arise.

Multiple members of the board seemed skeptical of the change. Pat Meade said members of the public want to be heard before the board votes on agenda items and compared moving public input to the end of the meetings to holding congressional hearings after a vote. Dawn King and David Bothast agreed that the move would take public voices away from discussions on agenda items, which they said are an important piece of the process.

Bothast suggested moving public comment to even earlier in the meeting before presentations, and King suggested enforcing stricter time limits on presentations.

The board's next public meeting is scheduled for Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. Prior to that meeting, Theroux said the board will schedule a work session to discuss addendums to the superintendent and treasurer contracts. While the work session will be publicized, it will be an executive session only.