News-Record.com

Morgan,

Is this school board "President" in Ohio the superintendent or the Chairman of the Board? I have never heard the title "School Board President" before.

And your observations are right on. Did it really take you 4 months to see that or were you just being polite?

When you are an elected official, hearing comments from the public, even when it gets ugly ,is part of the job. If there is that much public outcry, something is definetly not right.
And it is too bad some elected officials are too arrogant to listen to the public. Like right here in Guilford County!

You know the old saying: if you can't stand the heat then get out of the kitchen!!!

Morgan,
They need to go that far here in GC. They dont listen anyway.

I have an idea. No more public comments from High Point residents but Greensboro residents are free to speak.

Oops, meant to say..

Morgan,
They "DO NOT" need to go that far here in GC. They, (the school board), don't listen anyway.

Public schools means public funds means the public has a right to speak. Whatever happened to free speech?

GC sounds like it does what many other districts do by limiting the time allowed for public comments and reserving only so much time. Truth said it best "they don't listen anyway". It was interesting to see that a school board member mentioned in the article had a 30 some minute dialogue with a speaker. That wouldn't never happen here. There is no dialogue.

Now let's consider the Commissioners meetings. What about that old man who gets up week after week about the county removing junk from his property? Or the lady who always speaks first and tells everyone where to get their hair done? Then again we have the commissioners themselves calling each other stupid and making personal attacks.

This is where there needs to be RULES and a TIME limits. Actually, Dot could use a 3 minute timer too. She goes on and on and on and what is her point? The audience should get tax rebates to sit through some of these meetings. Chinese water torture would be less cruel.

Ohio's move is beyond the pale. In our system of constitutional democracy, how do they intend to enforce this gag rule? I suppose they could close the meetings, but that is probably directly prohibited by law, too. Even if they managed to stifle angry or dissident speech in the meetings themselves, how would they suppress the speech outside the boradroom or after the meeting adjourns? It seems like nonsense.

This is not to disagree that a lot of useless bickering passes in the name of public comment; but you have to take on all comers. Sometimes in the midst of a tirade one may glaen important insights.

Not happy in feel good Guilford,

Gibbs is indeed the school board president and Groveport Madison Schools only has 10 schools in its district. And yes, I try to be polite.

Morgan,

What is a school board president equivalent to here in Guilford County? Is that equivalent to the hired Superintendent, or equivalent to a voted-in School Board rep?

Thanks. You are very polite and I think you've done a great job at the NR.

President there equals chairman here. Same goes for VP and vice chair.

I used to cover schools (and government, crime, etc.) at a couple of papers in my home state of Ohio before moving south.