Grosse Pointes

Grosse Pointe schools changes board meeting times

By April Lehmbeck
C & G Staff Writer

GROSSE POINTES — The Grosse Pointe Public School System board is making a change to its schedule that could end up boosting participation if the previously later start time has kept anyone from stopping by the board’s regular meetings.

With an 8 p.m. start time, the board had one of the latest starts of meetings for both cities and schools in the area. The regular meetings, held on the fourth Monday of the month, sometimes followed special meetings, something that the board is also changing for the upcoming calendar year.

New Superintendent Thomas Harwood proposed the changes to the schedule during the Jan. 23 regular meeting — that includes moving the regular meetings to 7 p.m., making any work sessions the week prior and moving around the locations for the meetings.

“I think this is a great proposal because it will encourage more involvement from the community, make it easy for the community to participate at the meetings and also perhaps make the actual board meeting more efficient because we’ll have the work session a week prior,” Board Trustee Tom Jakubiec said. “Instead of getting surprised with things at the board meeting, we’ll have them a full week ahead of time.”

The board discussed the possibility of capping the length of the work sessions, which will also start at 7 p.m. the week prior if needed, but decided they didn’t want to force a hard time cap on the length of meetings.

The change includes hosting summer meetings at Brownell Middle School’s multipurpose room, which provides some additional benefits at that time.

“Having the meetings at Brownell does provide the opportunity for less set-up, less breakdown; we also, from a heating and cooling prospective, would be more efficient,” Harwood said.

The board voted unanimously for the change, with board members praising the earlier start time and other changes.

“It’s very difficult for young parents to get here with sitters, homework and young babies to come to a meeting and maybe not even get to participate in the meeting until after 10 p.m.,” Board Trustee Cindy Pangborn said. “So, hopefully by having a full work session where we can cover a lot of things and then have regular meetings starting earlier, the community has a better chance of an opportunity to talk.”

New Board President Judy Gafa also praised the change.

“I, too, like the new calendar; I like that we’re going to use Brownell a little more,” she said. “I like the earlier start time.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer April Lehmbeck at alehmbeck@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1043.