THE FACE OF ANN ARBOR VOLUME 3, NUMBER 42

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How can the board work better together?

By James David Dickson
A2 Journal

The Ann Arbor Board of Education held a retreat Oct. 13 at Skyline High School to find ways to work together more cohesively. Among the biggest changes that might result from the daylong retreat is a yearlong end to the two-committee system performance and planning which would be replaced by a Committee of the Whole. Rather than two board meetings a month and the performance and planning committees meeting separately, the entire board would meet on three of the Wednesday nights of each month, similar to months that the board has a study session. Trustees decided that they would formally consider the Committee of the Whole system at the boards Oct. 26 meeting. Though there are questions as to how much work a Committee of the Whole could handle, there is broad consensus on the need

for a switch from the twocommittee system, which some trustees feel has kept important issues from the forefront. Trustees said theyve been denied information. They dont believe that their issues are being valued and dont feel like they can count on updates from the committee theyre not on. Board Vice President Susan Baskett, who sits on the planning committee, was recently asked by Board President Deb Mexicotte to no longer serve on performance committee meetings. Baskett has not been happy that the board wont consider the districts 201011 suspension and expulsion data until its Feb. 8 study session. The district has also declined to release the data to Baskett at this point, citing a belief that Christine Stead expressed on Friday that data isnt information. Trustee Simone Lightfoot is concerned that the February meeting, coming a little more than four months from the end of

the school year, is too late in the year to impact this years senior class. Even so, said Mexicotte, we unravel as a board when people act outside of established board procedures. Glenn Nelson said he had no problem with Basketts attendance at planning committee meetings. Am I to understand that a board trustee would have even less rights than a citizen in attending committee meetings? he asked. Pretty much, he was told. Mary Kerwin, who led the consulting/counseling session on behalf of the Michigan Association of School Boards, explained that thats the trade-off of being an elected official. Mexicotte and Kerwin said that the request wasnt just a matter of decorum, but a matter of law. When four board members discuss board business, a quorum has been formed, and an official public meeting is taking place, according to the Michigan Open Meetings Act. This triggers a public notification

On the RAIL

Sports
Pioneer routs Huron in rivalry football game. Members of the Ann Arbor Board of Education held a retreat Oct. 13 to talk about working better together. requirement that typically hasnt been met by a committee meeting. As for the idea that a trustee could simply sit quietly at the meeting, Kerwin said that as little as a sigh or a rolled eye can influence a discussion. Mexicotte said that a fourth members presence puts the committee chairperson in a tough position of policing that boundary. And very much unlike a member of the public, any communication or participation in the meeting by a visiting trustee would create a quorum. Section 5.4 of the Michigan Open Meetings Act requires that the school district give the public 18 hours notice for an official board meeting. The media is notified, and it notifies the public. But that notification requirement doesnt
PLEASE SEE SCHOOL/8-A

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Group aims to improve achievement gap in district

By James David Dickson
A2 Journal

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Make sure to click on www.heritage.com around the clock for the most in-depth coverage of Washtenaw County. One of our Most Viewed stories is Football: State plays dirty, still plays better.

SPECIAL REPORT: BEHIND THE SMOKE PART III

Criminals scoring with state pot law, cops say

By Michael P. McConnell
law enforcement would be lax and it Journal Register News Service would be easy for them to do business. Oakland County NET agents have olice investigations show busted and dismantled more than 150 Michigans medical marijuana marijuana growing operations since law is attracting a cast of crim- the state medical marijuana law was inals, from low-level thieves passed nearly three years ago. More and armed robbers to convict- than a dozen people connected ed drug trafckers. with marijuana dispensaries in With illegal pot sales a multibillion- Ferndale and Waterford were dollar industry in the U.S., states that arrested and charged last year. allow limited cultivation and use of Michigan thus far has seen marijuana for patients are magnets for relatively few violent mariblack market operators, law enforcejuana related crimes. In other ment officials say. states with similar laws such Pot advocates argue the solution is as California and Washington to make marijuana legal nationwide patients, growers and clinic and end a fruitless war on drugs, but operators have been robbed, police say they have to enforce existing shot and even murdered. laws that protect the public against Burglaries and armed criminals. robberies have been Federal narcotics agents learned reported in Michigan in March that several illegal Cuban at dispensaries in Barbara Agro, 70, of Lake immigrants who had done time for Lansing, Ann Orion talked on her cellphone cocaine trafficking were looking to buy Arbor and outside the Clinical Relief houses in northern Oakland County to marijuana dispensary in PLEASE SEE set up marijuana growing operations. Ferndale Aug. 26, 2010, a day POT/2-A The Cubans were linked previously to after Oakland County narcotic a Columbian cocaine cartel, said one agents raided the facility. Agro, investigator. a medical marijuana patient, The Cubans couldnt get medical was a receptionist at the marijuana cards for themselves so dispensary and is one of eight they recruited people and paid them people con-nected to Clinic to get the cards, said Oakland County Relief to face Sheriff s Lt. Joseph Quisenberry, head charges. She is of the countys Narcotics Enforcement appealing a Team. With the medical marijuana conviction for law in Michigan, the perception is that manufacture and delivery of marijuana in Oakland See related Behind the County Circuit Smoke coverage on Court.

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The District-Wide Black Parent and Student Support Group held its first meeting of the 2011-12 school year Oct. 3 at Tappan Middle School. The meeting represented not only the start of a new academic year, but a new era for the group, which has been affiliated with Ann Arbor Public Schools for decades, but had seen engagement fall off in recent years. The theme of the meeting was bridging the achievement gap between minority students and the rest of the district. The achievement gap has existed in Ann Arbor Public Schools for decades and spans not only achievement on standardized tests, but grades and suspension/expulsion data, as well. Plans and promises have been made and consultants have been paid, but things dont change. And so it has fallen to the districts black parents, and other interested parties, to take responsibility for black student achievement upon themselves. Bryan Johnson, chairman of the support group, said that his biggest obstacle when he was at Pioneer High School wasnt a teacher or an administrator treating him wrong, it
PLEASE SEE GAP/12-A

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