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

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be fruitful areas for the school boards to discuss, I read in the papers and some school board members thought that we were exceeding our statutory authority to even have the audacity to suggest certain areas to discuss., And I note in the memo that we got from the attorney that the Orange County Commissioners have historically not exercised some of their statutory authority to more closely regulate what the schools do. We're trying to be collaborative. I see this as an opportunity to say, "Go forth, and do good things. We support you. Here are some ideas that we have." So, Mr. Saks is excited about doing that. He was working this evening with the Richmond Hills community in Efland or he said he would be here. And I would suggest that that would be a good way to at least get those discussions off the ground as one aspect of what this Board, I believe, would like, which is more cooperation and more information, Commissioner Gordon: Well, I could certainly support that approach. It's very similar to what I had suggested. I guess the only thing that I would add is that we ought to bring it back on our agenda for a formal charge and a formal procedure. Over the break, I think I would like to see them take our ideas and bring it back to our agenda as well as sending it forth to the school boards and Mr. Saks for a formal charge and a formal process as soon as we can in January. Commissioner Halkiotis: The only other thing I wanted to mention on that is, to save Mr. Saks a whole lot of time; I think it's really important for the Manager and his staff to sit down and give Mr. Saks a prep session on everything that's gone before here. And I'm going to give an example. I don't want to see a study come back, and I can speak to this with some experience, telling us that both school systems have been collaborating on transportation. The only reason that both school systems have been collaborating in transportation is because the way the State funnels the money down to them, They decide to funnel it through one allocation source, and that's it. It was not decided upon by the Chapel Hill - Carrboro schools and the Orange County school boards.. It was a State decision, and that's the way it is folks, Deal with it. And it's worked pretty well, there's a pretty seamless operation going on in school bus transportation because there aren't any politics involved in it. It just happens because you have to work with it. That's how the State gives you the money, and they tell you to go out and do it. And if you don't spend it right, they'll be all over you. That's the kind of straightforwardness and honesty we need to have in this thing and not end up with something that's going to be a bunch of mystical words and balloons floating around with little strings dangling from them. Commissioner Brown: To create an environment that the two school boards could work together in. It doesn't direct anything specifically to cover, but just how people need to trust and share and develop commonalities instead of differences. It's good thinking, it's a good way to approach this very serious discussion. I'm in favor of it Chair Jacobs: And we have forwarded these documents, including the one that Commissioner Brown just mentioned to Mr. Saks so that he could familiarize himself. What I'm hearing is that we would like staff work with the two school boards to develop a charge, to hire Mr. Saks, to state a timeline to work on issues of collaboration, which is part of the charge that could be identified. And that we'd like to have that come back to us in January. The Board agreed with this John Link: We'd be glad to certainly pursue that, My recommendation is that the Board confirm that we pursue tangible and quantifiable areas of collaboration. For instance, can the two school systems and the County collaborate, or we working with them agree on addressing issues such as how we pursue a4