By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s Columbus Dispatch put its finger on an important issue in public education: the tendency to limit school board members’ access to public information and district employees.

Despite an attendance-rigging scandal hanging over Ohio public schools, “a number of districts around central Ohio require, either formally or in practice, board members to call the district’s superintendent first before speaking directly with any other school administrators or visiting schools,” according to the Dispatch editorial.

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“The Olentangy school district voted last week to require school board members to request permission from the superintendent to talk to a school staff member, visit a school or obtain a district record.”

EAGnews first reported on the problem in Olentangy in August after speaking with school board member Adam White about disagreements he’s had with his school board president over getting information from school officials.

A group of parents approached White in July over concerns about how the state’s new common core standards would impact the district math curriculum.

White called Olentangy’s academic directors, and was told someone would call him back. But instead of getting a return phone call, White instead received an email – five days later – from school board President Dave King, reminding him to direct all of his comments and concerns to the superintendent, who will then pass them on to appropriate staff members.

“If a board member is seeking information from the board’s legal counsel, the request should go through the board president, financial matters through the board’s treasurer and everything else through the superintendent,” King wrote in the email.

The Columbus Dispatch came to the same conclusion about the restrictive school board policies as we did:

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“Of course, school board members shouldn’t micromanage, nor should they expect school personnel to be at their beck and call at a moment’s notice. But to perform their oversight and policy-setting role, they ought to be free to seek out firsthand knowledge of how their district is performing,” the newspaper opined.

“Boards would be better advised to make free communication the policy, and then deal as needed with any problems that might arise.”

The Dispatch suggests that if school board members had more access, it would be much easier to guard against potential problems like the state’s current attendance-rigging scandal.

“If board members are to perform their duty of overseeing the schools in the best interests of students, parents and taxpayers, they need unfettered access to schools and administrators. Otherwise, what they are told and shown can be easily controlled to hide anything that could be inconvenient to the superintendent,” the newspaper writes.

That’s exactly right.