Kent School Board meeting draws crowd to the microphone

The first school board meeting of the year brought congratulations, thank yous and further discussions of both class size and funding issues during the public-comment section of the Kent School Board’s Sept. 23 meeting.

The meeting, the first since the Kent Education Association’s strike came to a close, brought out a packed house that included teachers, parents, candidates, classified workers, members of the Kent Parents Coalition and Stand for Children and even the school board president’s wife, all of whom waited to to speak.

The meeting was the board’s first since Aug. 26, the night the KEA voted to go on strike. A meeting scheduled for Sept. 9 was deferred due to a lack of action items or presentations on the agenda.

While the meeting began with the usual school business involving discussions of an upcoming bond vote and enrollment figures, the majority of those in attendance waited for their chance to address the board.

First to speak were members of the district’s classified employees unions, thanking the board for thinking of them during the teacher strike.

“Classified people were in a quandary,” said Karen Rutledge, speaking on behalf of office professionals. “Thank you for all the support you gave classified people during that time. It was great.”

Classified staff are only paid while school is in session, something the district gave as one of its reasons to seek an injunction to end the strike.

Lee Thoren, a field representative for the Public School Employees food service division, said the district went “above and beyond” in dealing with classified staff during the strike and thanked them for the open lines of communication they maintained during the work stoppage.

“I don’t know that Kent’s efforts have been equaled,” he said. “What a show of value and respect.”

The comments, however, prompted teacher Cathy Jones to also address the board and the audience regarding the relationship between teachers and classified staff.

“Your treatment was different from ours,” Jones said, adding she felt the board and district showed little respect to teachers during bargaining and failed to keep open the same lines of communication.

Jones apologized for the inconvenience to classified staff, but said she and her fellow teachers thought often of the classified employees and said they were aware of the plight of classified employees during their strike.

Jones also said she hoped that teachers and classified employees could come together again for the good of the students.

“Something very divisive, it seems, has happened in our district,” she said.

Charles Allen, founder of the Kent Parents Coalition, which has announced its intention to recall two board members, also addressed the board on the issue of class size.

“We must do better,” he said, and presented the board with a 12-page document comparing class sizes in other districts to those in Kent and containing information from several studies regarding lower class size.

Some of the information in Allen’s packet, however, was misleading, as the comparisons to other districts contained the “caps” from the new KEA agreement, but compared them to the “goals” from at least two other districts (Auburn and Federal Way).

Also speaking was Dan Morris, of Stand For Children, who encouraged those in the audience to volunteer with his group, which will be lobbying the Legislature for increased funding and the passage of the district’s expected levy in February.

Also speaking was Suzanne Berrios, wife of board president Jim Berrios. Suzanne Berrios said she could no longer hold her tongue following the way her husband was attacked and maligned during the strike and listed a litany of things Berrios had done for the students of the district, including meals, donations, food-handling classes and his time on the board and the bond and levy committee prior to that.

“Aside from collecting some signatures,” she said, regarding Allen and his recall petitions, “what have you done for these kids?”

“Well, that was awkward,” Jim Berrios said, when Suzanne Berrios stepped down from the podium, injecting a bit of humor into the proceedings.

Alan Sutliff also addressed the board regarding his time on the Citizens Budget Review Committee. Sutliff said he felt like “one of many pawns” in the run-up to the strike because he felt the proposed budget-cutting priorities, which were discussed at a pair of public workshops in February, were little more than bargaining tactics for the board.

Steve Goliff was the only member of the public to address the rescheduling of the Sept. 9 meeting, saying he was “furious” at the decision to cancel the meeting because the was “not enough content.”

Goliff said he agreed that the Legislature should better fund education, but said it in no way affected the district’s treatment of teachers, including his wife, whom he said teaches at Panther Lake.

During the comment period, the board listened, but did not respond. The board rarely, if ever, responds to comments from the public.

During board comments, Chris Davies encouraged those in attendance to investigate Stand for Children as a group dedicated to education.

Berrios also said he supported what Stand was trying to do and again denied claims that the board was inaccessible during the strike, saying he and fellow board members responded to e-mails and phone calls and met with teachers on multiple occasions.

Berrios also expressed concern about the divided nature of things in the district, but said despite continued threats of a recall he continue to do what he thought was best for the students in Kent.

“My commitment is to these kids and I will continue to do that,” he said.