Saturday, August 05, 2006

MNEA is watching

Also in my packet for the next board meeting was a copy of an e-mail from Jamye Merritt MNEA president to the BOE secretary.

From: Merritt, Jamye M (MNPS)
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 9:39 AM
To: Bryant, Melissa (MNPS)
Subject: Board Meeting

Good Morning!

Melissa I would like to be placed on the agenda to speak at all board meetings. If I will not be speaking, I will notify you. Thanks for everything!

Jamye

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess you could say they "earned" the time...

Will NiT and s_town ferret out the conspiracy?

Anonymous said...

Any person can ask to address the board- it's a public meeting. The Parent Advisory Council does it all the time as well. Each speaker, if approved, gets 3 minutes- very common practice. This is only different because she just asked once rather than each time. How dare she!!

The first thing I noticed was how similar it is to Kay's comment on Aug 4: "Good morning! I am still here and intend to be for some time."

Kay Brooks said...

When I wrote "I'm still here" I meant here to be this blog.

I thought Jamye's request to be precedent setting. And considering the help MNEA gave some of these new board members the request comes off a lot like they're keeping an eye on their investment.

Throw in the fact that the MNEA and the BOE are still negotiating a contract and Wednesday we're scheduled to meet with them in the BOE boardroom and the request stands out more than your average PAC parent needing to speak for 3 minutes.

Anonymous said...

The only new board member MNEA endorsed is Gracie Porter, and pretty much every group endorsed her. MNEA didn't make an endorsement in districts 4 or 6 and they did endorse Mr. Kerstetter and Mrs. Harkey, who lost.

I didn't mean in comparison between you and Dr. Merritt in a negative way. The two of you, though I doubt you see it, are both education advocates who have been villified for your agendas, especially in this last election cycle. Because of your role as an advocate and (in?)formal lobbyist for homeschool families and her role as an advocate for educators, people question your motives. Both your post, which I took to mean you intend to continue being a voice for schools (via this blog), and her email, seem to say "I intend to keep fighting." I think you are both more well meaning than people suggest and wish you both much success. I'm not trying to start a flame war, so I'll leave it at that.