Flowers- We are open and transparent- Koch, Guilford, Fort- No, you're not

Joplin R-8 Board of Education President Jeff Flowers seemed surprised when he was asked a question tonight about the board's transparency problems with the public.

""We are open and honest about everything we do," Flowers said.

Debbie Fort did not agree. "I believe we have a transparency issue and more importantly the federal government believes we do." She pointed out that in the Joplin R-8 School District's 2012 application for federal Race to the Top funding, the district received zero points for transparency.

She criticized the board's policy of not allowing patrons to speak unless they have registered in advance and are speaking on an issue that is on the agenda and is going to be voted on by the board.

As she spoke, Flowers rolled his eyes a couple of times and also raised his eyebrows a time or two.

 Mrs. Fort did not mention that at the present time, no one speaks to the board without the approval of Flowers as board president and Superintendent C. J. Huff. Huff's name was never mentioned during the one hour forum. "We need to be more open and receptive to what the public wants to tell us." Mrs. Fort says she has parents telling her all the time they do not feel their voices are being heard.

It was David Guilford though, again without mentioning C. J. Huff's name, who noted that the change in policy, making it far more difficult for ordinary people to address the Board of Education had occurred in 2008, not so coincidentally, the first year for both Huff and Flowers.

"This is a big issue. Before 2008," Guilford said, "You could walk into a board meeting and any taxpayer could walk into a board meeting and speak about any issue they wanted."." The current policy is not right, he added. "That's closing the door completely on the taxpayers. It's wrong and it's very detrimental to our district and our students."

Koch agreed, noting, "If you don't have those avenues open, you can say you're transparent as much as you want," it's not the case. "We need to return the board to the people. If people don't have a chance to voice their concerns with us, we don't have a chance to take care of them. And if we don't take care of them, our kids are missing out."

Randy Steele said he communicates by being "out in the public. We need to make sure we do communicate."

Lynda Banwart talked about being involved in communicating with the public as a member of a school Site Council and said she is not sure what she would do until she gets there.

Shawn McGrew said it was important to communicate. "Communication is the foundation for trust. We have to have bottom up, top down communication; it has to be full circle. Communication has to be a focal point of every thing we do."