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Gavel I was at the Romeo school board meeting Monday night. From the moment I grabbed my agenda, made a cup of coffee, and sat down I felt like something odd would happen.

My feeling was correct. The meeting started off with a heated debate about agenda items and a rapidly approaching end time of 8:00 PM for closed session. This was a sure sign of things to come.

Next, I sat through a 2.5 hour presentation of old data. As I thumbed through a book I passively listened to principals and the assistant superintendent try to explain why Romeo is struggling with state-wide tests statistically in 2002-2006, but not admitting any failure on the part of the education children receive. Let’s just say writing scores are an issue across every grade level which likely leads to poor test scores in other areas.

While this was going on and the clock was ticking I started to get a strong sense that this was a filibuster. I kept thinking…. who and why would the person who sets the agenda run a 2.5 hour filibuster at a local school board meeting? What is this, Congress?

Sure enough, the lawyers showed up and the audience started to be reminded that these people were “on the clock” and they’d have to go to closed session soon. For a moment I thought the majority would make a motion to go to closed session without taking the time for public comments to be heard– but I knew the public would not stand for that after wallowing through that presentation just to get to public comment.

Sure enough, a bombshell statement was made during public comment.

In a printed statement read during the public comment portion of the Feb. 11 Romeo School Board meeting, Jeanne Lerchen asked Hier to resign her office as board president.
Her request stemmed from a reported Jan. 30 inquiry made by Hier to WBRW Channel 6’s station manager to find out why Lerchen was taping the board’s Jan 28 meeting. In addition, Lerchen, who is a Channel 6 employee, maintained Hier also uttered slurs to her employer regarding her mental competency and why donations were not being made to the Foundation for Educational Excellence.

“I see no other recourse than to ask Mrs. Hier to resign from the Romeo Community Schools Board of Education,” Lerchen said. “I want you to know that I am prepared to take this as far as I must to hold Mrs. Hier accountable.” link

I didn’t see that coming. I had a feeling that someone would say something to excite the audience but I never suspected that a board member would be accused of slander and defamation of character. My jaw dropped and I posted a message on Twitter, “Things just got tribal at the board meeting. Holy cow.”

Mrs. Lerchen suggested that the sitting school board president, Sue Hier, step down. (Double jaw drop time!) If that had happened, it would have been a premature step. It was clear that board members were equally shocked as they didn’t know how to respond.

Personally, I think that these accusations should lead to some sort of an independent investigation into what happened. It seems to me that it would be a disservice to both Mrs. Lerchen and Mrs. Hier if the matter were not properly investigated. But who am I? Just a lowly taxpayer and parent/passive observer.

If you ever needed an invitation to a school board meeting, consider this news story that. Jennifer White, another school board member, insisted that this accusation be the first agenda item at the next board meeting. I know that I will be there and I hope other parents will as well. What wasn’t captured in the news item was the chaos that reigned at the board meeting. In fact, the meetings as a whole seem to be out of control. Items on the agenda, as pointed out my Mr. Stobeck and Mrs. White, continue to be tabled for months at a time while long executive summaries eat up the meeting time. These are things that need to be seen to fully appreciate as they aren’t fully understood with television coverage alone. (Why does it matter? Well, these passive methods of tabling discussion items ensure that things never change when clearly things must!)

Question: If the accusations that Mrs. Lerchen has made are true… what do you think should happen? Should there be a new board president? And if so, who?

Don’t want to leave a comment? Send me an e-mail: mclanea@gmail.com

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