ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 20, 1996 TAG: 9611200046
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
LET'S TRY to sort out the issues that got mixed up Monday when Roanoke City Council chose an unfortunate way to express a grievance.
1. From a package of city/School Board legislative proposals, council eliminated language asking that school boards retain their power to overturn the findings of employee-grievance panels. Result: The city's lobbying position in the General Assembly will be silent on this issue, a change likely to make no difference in Richmond.
The vote did, however, mark a departure from previous years in which council outvoted Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt's efforts to eliminate this defense of school-board prerogative. Gary Waldo, the teachers' representative, was moved to call council's turnaround "extraordinarily wonderful."
But, if anything, schools need to be going the other direction - getting rid of red tape and adversarial rules that cripple administrative discretion and turn employment issues into matters of law.
Besides which, shouldn't Wyatt, a teacher herself, keep a lower profile on City Council when it comes to teacher-employment issues?
2. Council, in particular Mayor David Bowers, also saw fit to criticize School Board members for not attending a legislative policy meeting last week or a meeting with council Monday. There was a hint, anyway, that if board members didn't care enough about their legislative program to defend it, well, they could be treated like schoolchildren who didn't do their homework.
But everybody should do their homework, council members included. It turns out there were reasons why some School Board members didn't attend some meetings. To be sure, board members' commitment and conscientiousness do vary. But if some are on the board who shouldn't be, it is because council appointed and reappointed them.
LENGTH: Short : 38 linesby CNB