A $600,000 contract for maintenance of license plate reader cameras was among more than a dozen resolutions that Cleveland school board members passed without discussion at their Aug. 19 meeting, the first held in a new format called consent agenda.
Until recently, the board read aloud, and sometimes discussed, all resolutions at their work sessions, typically the first of its two monthly public meetings. The members then voted on each resolution at the business meeting two weeks later.
But under the consent agenda format, resolutions will not be read aloud at work sessions and members will vote on the entire slate of resolutions at once.
“The consent agenda allows for more board meeting time to be spent on important strategic issues related to student outcomes and achievement,” Board Chair Sara Elaqad told Signal Cleveland in an interview.
At the Aug. 19 meeting, Elaqad’s explanation of the consent agenda and the vote on that night’s 15 resolutions took less than two minutes.
Elaqad then immediately turned the meeting over to CMSD CEO Warren Morgan. He and district staff members spent about 50 minutes presenting data on providing opportunity and access to all students, part of the district’s Goals and Guardrails agenda.
The change was first discussed at the June business meeting. Elaqad joked then that the only people who will miss the old format are parents who “stream the board work session to help their children fall asleep.”
What are resolutions?
Resolutions are documents that pose questions about the operation of the school district. Board members answer those questions by voting.
Most resolutions are routine. Resolutions passed at the August meeting included accepting grants from foundations and the state; approving a list of school bus stops; authorizing the reclassification of some district employees and accepting the resignations of others; and renewing contracts with vendors for security equipment.
Going forward, the text of all resolutions and relevant documents will be sent to board members at least 10 days before business meetings, according to Elaqad. Board members can send written questions to CMSD staff. Those questions and answers, as well as the resolutions, will be shared with the public on Board Docs sometime before the meeting.
A resolution can be excluded from the consent agenda to allow for in-meeting discussion and a separate vote if Elaqad or three other board members decide that’s needed.
That differs from the way the format is described by the Ohio School Boards Association: “If any member wishes to discuss an item [at a public meeting] … it must be removed.”
Neither that version nor Cleveland’s provides a mechanism for citizens to ask for a resolution to be discussed in a meeting.
The Columbus and Cincinnati school boards also use consent agendas, Elaqad said. In those cities, board members are elected. In Cleveland, they are appointed by the mayor.
The board has been working for two years with the Council of the Great Schools, a coalition of more than 80 large districts across the country, toward an approach to district leadership called student outcomes focused governance, Elaqad said.
“That’s why we’ve made the shift” to consent agendas, Elaqad said, “so we are spending more time on reports like the one that Dr. Morgan gave … and less time on very routine things and tactical matters that are not really the best way for the board to use its time.”
Wait, CMSD has license plate readers?
One of the vendor contracts approved at the recent meeting was with Flock Systems, maker of the license plate reader (LPR) cameras that the district has used at 70 locations since 2022, according to district spokesperson Jon Benedict.
The $603,000 covers one year of maintenance on the cameras and use of Flock’s operating system. The expense had been covered by grants, but they have expired, Benedict said.
LPRs take pictures of cars. The system then automatically compares their license plates, make, model and identifying features like accident damage to lists of vehicles that have been reported stolen, involved in a crime or owned by a “known offender.” Matches are reported to the camera’s owner.
LPRs allow “real-time monitoring of our properties, in addition to serving as investigative tools if a crime occurs,” Benedict said. Images are shared “in real time with our safety partners,” including Cleveland police. The images are not shared within Flock’s national network.
“Their use across all of our properties has helped to deter and identify car thefts, in addition to helping identify vehicles related to AMBER alerts and notifying us of known offenders on our properties,” Benedict said.