Board president responds to open meeting law complaint

Although school board president Cindy Trigg apologized for some of her language during the superintendent evaluation last month, the Congressional candidate is holding her ground on another front - her supervision of the evaluation process itself.

On June 19, The Record-Courier filed an open meeting law complaint with the state attorney general's office against the school board.

The Record-Courier raised three issues with the superintendent evaluation. The first was that three board members were involved in compiling the evaluation materials, but the process was not agendized nor held in public. In its complaint, The R-C said the action constituted a subcommittee and was therefore subject to open meeting laws.

The second issue was that written statements produced by board members during the compilation process were not included in the June 17 meeting. The third issue fell along similar lines - that two petitions signed by district employees, allegedly requesting Superintendent Carol Lark's contract not be extended, were also not presented at the June 17 meeting.

Trigg said board members received the petitions before their regular June 9 meeting, and that the petitions were included as regular correspondence at the end of that meeting.

"The correspondence was brought out at the public board meeting of June 9, and no one had comments," Trigg said. "The June 9 correspondence wasn't part of the evaluation paperwork, nor was it supposed to be. As far as keeping it for the public, it was addressed as correspondence in line with what needed to be done."

"It's our contention that the three school board members who compiled the superintendent's evaluation were a subcommittee of the entire board and therefore subject to the Nevada Open Meeting law," said R-C Editor Kurt Hildebrand. "Any of that committee's work should be available to the public. State law requires that public officials like the superintendent be evaluated in the open. There is no exception in the law that says 'unless the school board president disagrees with what's said.' We've turned this issue over to the Nevada Attorney General's office, whose duty it is to enforce the law. This complaint isn't just for the press, but for anyone who wants to keep track of what the people in charge of their tax dollars are doing."

Trigg, a self-described supporter of Lark, said the board president has the authority to organize the evaluation materials.

"It's my prerogative," she said. "In interest of making sure no one thought there was a conflict of interest, I asked the officers to help me compile the information."

Trigg said board members' number-based evaluations were compiled and averaged for the June 17 meeting.

"It was not a subcommittee," she said. "There was no discussion whatsoever of the superintendent's evaluation."

In including the two other officers, Trigg said she was trying to be as transparent as possible.

"I thought there would have been a bigger conflict if I had done it on my own," she said.

As for the written statements from board members, Trigg said she wanted to base the evaluation on an objective number system of grading that included three categories: student achievement, perception, and progress on priorities. She said any board member could offer their personal opinion at the June 17 meeting.

"All I wanted was to use the number system on a graph and to put together the sheets and compile the information," she said. "Nothing was kept from the public. That's not how I do business. Seeing the rhetoric at the board meeting, you can see why I chose to include the officers. I wanted to avoid anybody thinking there was a conflict.

"The key purpose of school board members is to advance student achievement. Supporting the superintendent in that is our first and primary goal. Kids are precious resources and we don't have time to play politics and do what we need to do to advance education."

Lark's contract is scheduled to be discussed again at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at Douglas High School.

Scott Neuffer can be reached at sneuffer@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 217.