MANISTIQUE - Agenda items took a backseat to public comment during Monday night's meeting of the Manistique School Board. Among the issues raised was the interim part-time position Superintendent John Chandler has taken with the downstate Mesick School District.
The position, which Chandler announced he would be taking during an October meeting, is a temporary attempt to save costs for the Manistique School District. During Monday's meeting, board members approved an amendment to the superintendent's contract. According to Chandler, this amendment, "per the shared superintendency agreement with Mesick consolidated schools, calls for a $30,000 salary reduction."
Chandler pointed out the contract between Manistique and Mesick leaves the ultimate control of the split up to Manistique Area Schools (MAS). "It is expressly understood that Manistique Area School's is and shall remain my first priority and if there are any concerns related to this, the board or superintendent can exercise the rightsto terminate with or without reasoning, with or without prior notice."
Despite the amendment, public questions where still raised about the sharing of the superintendent's fringe benefit package, which, according to one citizen, totaled anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000. Chandler stressed he was not sharing the package and also denied the school district was incurring any of the costs of mileage during his long distance trips.
The effectiveness of having a part-time superintendent and the temporary nature of the split also came into question. "If we can get away with having a part-time superintendent, why can't we do it next year too?" said one meeting attendee. "Why should we go back and forth and back and forth - I don't think it's fair to the students or our district."
When faced with the questions from the public, the board members reiterated this is a temporary situation to try the district's hand at expense and job sharing. "This can be terminated at any time with or without prior notice by the board or me, so if we decided this isn't workingwe can end it literally on a moment's notice," said Chandler. "If it works we'll do it and if it doesn't, we'll end it."
Chandler's new split-shift was not the only decision called into question, as another citizen criticized his recent approval of the Gideon's distribution of their Bible at both the middle/high and elementary school. During a reading from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Web site, one citizen noted, "When government permits a religious group to take over part of the school's facilities during instructional time - however briefly, it strongly implies official endorsement of that religion."
In a recent letter addressing the complaints received about the distribution, Chandler noted MAS may chose whether material is appropriate and has a "open" forum, which allows for any group or organization to have an equal opportunity at using school resources, as long as it is not during instructional hours and is deemed appropriate. However, the concerned attendee pointed out that, "I know in Mr. Chandler's response, he said that this was not during instructional time, but I beg to differ, in the middle/high school, there is no non-instructional time at lunch because there are classes in session all day long."
It was also noted by the citizen there had been complaints about the Gideons getting in between the school buses and children at the elementary school. While Chandler wrote in his letter that the Bibles were only being offered to fifth grade students, it was contended that even this was unacceptable.
"Presumably the fifth graders could make a public show of not accepting the Biblebut the First Amendment prohibits the government from putting children in the difficult position of making this decision," said the attendee. "You can't do it - you can't put that kind of pressure on elementary kids, it's just not allowable."
According to Chandler's response the school district has two choices which are to, "maintain our open forum and allow the distribution of Bibles along with all of the other things we do" or to "pass a policy declaring that MAS is a closed forumthen eliminate things we do with Operation Christmas Child, Veterans Day, St. Francis, Zion Lutheran, Great Lakes Adventist, as well as many of the other things above."
"It probably would have been less controversial to do the illegal and contrary to policy thing - deny the Gideons access," wrote Chandler. "However, I do my best to make legal, policy-based decisions even if they are going to cause some controversy, which I fully anticipated this doing."
In response to the concerned citizen's remarks, the board decided to refer the matter to the Policy Committee and to have them come back with policy clarification at the next meeting of the board.