The New Rochelle Board of Education will hold its “inaugural” Community Town Hall on Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021.
The town hall will take place at the New Rochelle Public Library’s Ossie Davis Theater, 1 Library Plaza, New Rochelle.
The public can view the Town Hall via Zoom at this link.
The Town Hall will begin at 7 p.m. and conclude at 8:30 p.m.
Superintendent Jonathan Raymond and Board of Education President Julia Muggia Ochs will respond to questions. The Town Hall will be moderated by the Rev. Dierdra Clark of New York Covenant Church. Index cards and pencils will be provided for attendees to submit questions. Viewers on Zoom are invited to submit questions via Zoom’s chat function.
The invite has been re-worked.
YOU’RE INVITED TO ATTEND
OR VIEW TONIGHT’S
COMMUNITY TOWN HALL
Superintendent Jonathan Raymond invites you to join a Community Town Hall TONIGHT. See participation details below.
WHEN:
Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE:
New Rochelle Public Library, 1 Library Plaza, New Rochelle, NY
Viewable on Zoom.
The announcement says “first” and “inaugural” town hall. I am confused by this as such an event would hardly be the first time the NRBOE has held a “town hall”. I have attended many such events and have photos as well. In my experience they are not useful or productive. For example, after the violence in Jan 2018, most of what people wanted to know was deemed confidential. Same with the Alteris/Security town hall. Same with the superintendent search town halls most notably the one that ended with hiring of Dr. Feijóo.
https://www.nred.org/o/nrps/article/558362
For what it is worth, in the past, there has been a general failure to establish and adhere to ground rules for these events. Typically, a handful of people get into a back and forth and end up hijacking the event. With the caveat that the idea of a school board (as opposed to a Superintendent) having a town hall is, in my view, misguided, I would suggest that that learning from past failures would be to have some clear ground rules then follow them.
A problem is that you have an MC who will presumably sort through questions from the public then pose them. But to who? An individual board members has no authority apart from acting as a body so on what basis would an individual board member respond to a question?
I am well aware that there are enough egos on the board who will chomp at the bit to answer any and all questions. I believe, however, that this is yet another example of the board undermining itself.
To be clear, I continue to oppose the School Buddy Program, holding regular board meetings at schools (an exception being budget meetings at NRHS), and anything that is not 100% focused on the school board doing the business of the district.