Report: School Site Council Election Process

Transcript (~3 min @ 46:22)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 46:19 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thank you, Ms. Razi-Thomas. Next on our agenda is the announcements of the chair, the first item being our school site council election process. This is an annual exercise that the superintendent and leadership puts forward with the understanding that the site council is a legal body, and I believe must convene within 40 days of the beginning of school. And so that's why this is appearing on our agenda this evening, and it is recorded as not require a vote. Superintendent, is there anything you would like to add about this?

▶ 46:55 Speaker 4: No, just always appreciate the work that the principals do with this team, and, again, we involve community members and parents, and I think that's a great way for us to educate our students and provide a great experience for them. So, thank you for everyone who volunteers their time for this.

▶ 47:14 Speaker 3: Any questions on that? Ms. Leo.

▶ 47:17 Speaker 2: So, I noticed that each-- First of all, I think site councils are great. We should mention that. I am a former site council member of two different schools earlier, before my kids were even in the school. So that's kind of interesting. But I noticed that there are different kind of terms and different approaches to overlapping. Some of the schools have everybody up on a two-year term. Some of them do staggered. Do the schools determine that? Is this sort of just grandfathered in? How are you thinking about that? Because it can be hard for community members who are not embedded in the school to understand how and when they might connect in with this opportunity.

▶ 48:00 Speaker 4: I do not know that question- Okay ... off the top of my head. I'm sure there is some requirement that I am not familiar with at this moment in time. So, I know oftentimes it is that two-year term. That's what I'm used to at being at the secondary level. But I would have to do a little more digging to give you that exact answer.

▶ 48:24 Speaker 2: No problem. I would just respectfully ask that if we can make sure that we're finding ways for the community more broadly to know how they can connect and volunteer, I think that could be really valuable. And maybe that means a little more centralized. But I don't know either. So I'm just going to hand it back to you.

▶ 48:46 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thanks. Thank you. And I would just note that it might be helpful to all of us to read in the MASC Book of Laws. Site councils are created by statute, so that might be a source that we could all learn a little something from. So we all have a little homework to do.

▶ 49:03 Speaker 4: You all have new books coming too for the new updated laws of 2026.