Fairfax School Board Acts to Streamline Its Meetings

The Fairfax County School Board took a positive step at its April 13, 2023 meeting by adopting procedures to reduce virtue-signaling speeches by Board members.   There are some ambiguities about the new guidelines, but the overall effect should be to reduce the time devoted at Board meetings to formalities so that more time can be spent on substantive issues.

Existing Procedures

Almost all School Board meetings begin with statements of Board support for noteworthy calendar events or interest groups.  The statements typically take the form of a motion to adopt a Resolution.  Each Resolution is read, beginning with wordy whereas clauses, followed by a recitation of why the event or group deserves to be honored by the school system.  Board members are then given an opportunity to speak to the motion, and the opportunity is rarely waived.  As elected officials who want to appeal to all segments of the community, everyone feels compelled to profess their undying, lifelong support for the interests embodied in the Resolution.  After each Resolution is voted on, interested members of the public are invited to come forward for a photo-op with the Board.

In addition to Resolutions, some statements of Board support are labelled as Recognitions.   The only difference between a Resolution and a Recognition, as described in the Board’s Governance Manual, is that if an acknowledgement is called a Recognition, no formal vote by the Board is needed to approve it, whereas putting a Resolution label on it does require a vote by the Board.

The number of Resolutions and Recognitions has proliferated over time.  Board members have added more and more of them to cater to their key constituencies.  In the six Board meetings in the first quarter of 2023, fifteen events or groups were recognized in Resolutions or Recognitions.  The nine Resolutions covered Human Trafficking Awareness Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Arab-American Heritage Month, and others.  The six Recognitions included National Career & Technical Education Month, National Social Work Month, Autism Acceptance Month, and others.

Resolutions and Recognitions are taken up at the beginning of the Board meetings, which are scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m.  Reading the recognitions, speechifying in their favor, voting on them, and the ensuing photo-ops sometimes consume the first 90 minutes of a meeting, such that the discussion of substantive business doesn’t begin until 8:30 p.m. or later.

New Procedures

The Board recognized that the Resolutions and Recognitions were getting out of hand, so a task force was set up to reduce the their number and to shorten the time discussing them.  The group developed a list of 24 annual events that will be designated as Recognitions.  The list was approved at the Board’s April 13 meeting.  Although the number is still large, it is a significant reduction from the recent past.  Of equal importance, the Board approved two changes that should significantly reduce the time spent on each one.

1.  Some of the 24 events were previously called Resolutions.  By now labelling them as Recognitions, it will not be necessary to introduce them by a formal motion or to vote on them.  Their text will simply be read at the Board meeting by the Superintendent, by the Board’s Vice Chair, or by the Student Representative.
2.  Board members will no longer be asked to deliver speeches in favor of the Recognitions.  (Individual members can address them during their three minutes of allotted time at the end of the meeting, but speeches by all twelve members during the early parts of the meetings will no longer occur.)

The Board also decided to relabel the category of Resolutions as “Proclamations.”  Proclamations will be used to honor current events, outstanding school teams/ensembles, retiring staff members, certain scholarship awards, etc.  Individual Board members can propose up to two Proclamations annually.  Unlike Recognitions, Proclamations will require a motion and approval by the Board.  (One ambiguity in the new procedure is whether speeches by Board members will be permitted in support of these awards.)

Discussion

Attending Board meetings, whether in-person or via live TV, has often been maddening.  People wanting to hear discussion of important substantive issues have been forced to sit through lengthy speeches whose main purpose has been to appeal to the constituencies or causes of the individual Board members.  Some of this will probably continue in one way or another, but the new procedures are definitely a positive development

Note:  The Board’s vote on the updated procedures was nine in favor, one against (Omeish), and two abstentions (Anderson and Keys-Gamarra).

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