Agenda - 02-12-2004-6 - Laserfiche WebLink

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over the last couple of years. When you, Mr. Chair, as a matter of fact, if I'm not mistaken, brought this up initially and began the use of that term. One of the things that I heard quite a bit back then was the fact that some people immediately didn't like the idea of collaboration because the proposal that had come down at the time involving our own staff had, with all due respect to Professor Boyle, I don't know Professor Boyle, but there were people complaining that he had children in one school system and couldn't be objective to the other school system. So I think we need to look at any and all, and I don't know that.. I've never met the man, But I heard that coming from some circles. So we need to go back and review all the concerns that people had from both school systems with respect to what does collaboration mean, I remember somebody jumping up one night at somebody who's no longer on the Board and saying, collaboration is another word for merger You remember that I'm sure.. That was a very telling moment. So spend a little time now, if we're going to actively pursue this as part of the component of the total undertaking and go back and look at where the concerns were raised over the last year and a half. There's no reason to go fall into the same pit all over again when you can map it out and avoid it on round two. So I would put that out there as a suggestion - Staff revisit concerns that have been expressed over the last year and a half and look at avoiding those same issues all over again. It wastes time. And I think we go back over and over the same stuff again and there's no reason to do that. Commissioner Brown: Could you give an example of what has transpired over the last year and a half? Commissioner Halkiotis: I was just mentioning that I had heard in some circles that some people felt the deck was stacked by having Phil Boyle be the facilitator for collaboration because he had children at that time in the Chapel Hill - Carrboro school system. But what I'm saying is you eliminate that argument from any side by having somebody come in who has no affiliation with either school system to act as a facilitator. And when you mentioned the Dispute Settlement Center, I keep on thinking of the wonderful work that Andy Saks has done over the years, And we've used him in County government for a number of undertakings, and very successfully. So that's all I'm proposing — avoid the mistakes of the past if that's the road we're going to go down, Chair Jacobs: And if I might, I have spoken with Andy Saks, and he is willing to undertake this. I had made a proposal working with Commissioner Brown on some possible areas of collaboration, and what I would like to suggest is that we take this Attachment 5, the original memorandum of understanding about collaboration, we give it to Mr. Saks and to the two school boards, and we send them forth with a timeline and with some areas that we've identified that we're interested in at least finding out if they may be fruitful for collaboration, and ask them to come back to us by the first of June with a report on what they think they can do together and what they can't do together. And perhaps the first item on their agenda should be, as you say, to define what collaboration might be and to respond to this memorandum of understanding which was developed with Mr. Boyle, which the two school boards did endorse, I guess it was last year, and that we offer that the two school boards and the County Commissioners jointly pay whatever nominal amount of money that the Dispute Settlement Center would charge as a way of saying, "We're all in this together". I personally don't want to be involved in those discussions and don't think that County Commissioners should be involved in those discussions.. I think that there's nothing wrong with our suggesting areas that we think, based on having listened to the public and listened to the school boards, might a3