To the editor:

This submission is a follow-up to a separate December letter to the editor about the Dollar Bay-Tamarack City School District. After a local school bond election passed by only 24 votes in August, local citizens began attending school board meetings and expressing their concerns to the school board. Citizens have attended every scheduled board meeting since August, and have made multiple public comments at every meeting, yet the topics of these comments are not included in the meeting minutes, nor have they been addressed by the school board. The published meeting minutes state only that “the board heard public comment.”

If citizens are concerned enough to take the time to attend public board meetings and to share their concerns with the school board, couldn’t the school district simply record the topics that are being presented to them in the meeting minutes? Other local school districts’ websites show that public comments have been included in the district’s meeting minutes. Why not Dollar Bay-Tamarack City?

Recently, I contacted the DB-TC School superintendent’s office to request that the citizen comments be added to the meeting minutes. The response I received was that the school provides minimal information on public comment based on a recommendation from the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB). I then researched the MASB website and found an article that showed several examples of public comment topics being included in the meeting minutes. Due to examples from the MASB, as well as a review of other local school districts meeting minutes, it remains unclear why the Dollar Bay-Tamarack City School District is unwilling to honor a citizen’s request for public comments to be added to the meeting minutes.

Why does it matter? Not including the public’s concerns shortchanges the community from knowing what current local concerns are. Lack of transparency in public records should be a red flag to citizens to wonder what’s going on within their local school district. If such a small request is refused, what else is not being disclosed that local citizens should be made aware of?

A few of the recent items that the DB-TC School District meeting minutes do not reflect are: a formal complaint to the school board against Superintendent-Principal Christina Norland after her banning of 2 citizens from school property, requests for project information on the current school bond project, questions about whether background checks will be completed for adult drivers of a Christian after school program, and the continued unwelcoming behavior of the school board toward citizens who attend the meetings and express their concerns and comments to the school board.

Yooper Cares, a local citizens advocacy group inspired by the August bond election, has compiled a list of 27 public comments made since August. If you would like to know more about the topics that citizens are presenting to the Dollar Bay-Tamarack City School Board, please send a request to yoopercares@gmail.com.

The next Dollar Bay-Tamarack City School Board meeting is on Mar. 16th in the school library at 6:00 p.m. Please let the Dollar Bay-Tamarack City community know about this meeting, and consider taking time to attend your local board meetings wherever you live. You can easily check your local schools’ online meeting minutes to see how they document their meeting minutes including public comments made to the school board.

This is an election year for many local communities and it’s a great time to find out how your school board leadership is working on behalf of the local community.