Modesto City Schools to weigh steps to calm meetings

After a series of contentious meetings, the Modesto City Schools board will look over meeting protocols Monday that allow the board president to clear the room if things get rowdy.

Teachers demanding higher wages and community activists have packed board meetings since December. During public comment time for items not on the agenda, many impassioned speakers went past their allotted minutes, with spontaneous responses by more audience members drawing out the half-hour segment to three or four hours at several meetings.

The agenda item up for discussion Monday reiterates the existing policy of a three-minute limit for speakers, who must fill out a card before the meeting, and a total discussion time limit of 30 minutes.

The board has the option to extend the time, as well as a three-level security protocol to deal with “willful interruptions.” The president first calls for order and issues a warning to interrupting audience members. If that fails to restore order, the president can ask that the offending individuals be removed from the room.

In case the disruptions “render the orderly conduct of the meeting unfeasible,” the board could vote to clear the room.

Only once in recent meetings did the crowd appear ready to mutiny, and that was in outraged response to a demand to sit down shouted at African American speakers by board President Steve Grenbeaux, for which he later apologized.

At the time, it took a plea for tolerance by veteran board member Cindy Marks to settle the crowd, but the policy codifies the option of security intervening. A Modesto police officer is present at all board meetings.

The teachers contract settled for a 6 percent raise, but activists asking for more services and more equitable treatment for African American students have continued to draw crowds to meetings. As budget deliberations for the 2016-17 fiscal year draw to a close, advocates seeking funding for specific requests continue to keep the issue front and center.

The district is under scrutiny by federal and state agencies for its higher discipline rates for African Americans, especially boys.

Also slated for Monday’s meeting is a presentation on what the district is doing to lower its discipline rates by implementing behavioral supports and interventions for all students. Modesto City Schools has dramatically decreased suspensions and expulsions. The district expelled nearly 300 students in 2010. That dropped to 17 in 2014, and the district is on track to lower the number to only a handful this school year.

The change has come with a tiered system of prevention and intervention put in place districtwide. The systemic approach earned praise from a nonprofit focused on educational equity. WestEd convened a regional conference on the topic in Modesto and held the district’s efforts up as a model.

In other business, the board will vote on a school calendar for 2016-17 that sets spring break four weeks earlier than many of its feeder districts. The move, agreed to in the teacher contract, sets the one-week vacation by the school grading calendar, not Easter.

This year, that positions spring break for Modesto City Schools students on March 20-24. The calendar continues the tradition of taking off Good Friday. All Stanislaus County school districts have traditionally set their spring breaks for the week following Easter, which in 2017 will fall on April 16.

David Collins, a Sylvan Union School District parent and school board member, told the board at its last meeting the Sylvan calendar was set in union contracts for April 17-21 and asked the board to delay implementing a secular schedule for one more year.

Sylvan, in north Modesto, is the largest of seven elementary districts that send their students to Modesto City Schools high schools.

Before the board meeting begins, there will be a reception held for retiring employees.

This story was originally published May 8, 2016 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Modesto City Schools to weigh steps to calm meetings."