Reading CCSD Between the Lines

Want an item on the CCSD School Board's agenda? Find four members to support it. Want an item taken off the agenda? One will do. Well, that's only fair, isn't it?

That's the gist of Friday's P & C story on disagreements expressed by board members on its "gag" rule. [SeeAgenda Policy Under Review.] Apparently this cockeyed system was introduced solely to silence John Graham Altman, presumably some time between 1984, when he served as chairman, and 1996, when he left the board.

Let's take a hypothetical example. Suppose you, as a board member, managed to get three other members to support putting the leasing agreement for the Charter School for Math and Science on the agenda. Unbenownst to you a fifth board member comes along and takes it off the agenda.

Maddening, isn't it? After all that work getting four members to agree?

Of course, you understand this example is only hypothetical, right?