By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy School Board decided Monday night to cut back on the number of monthly meetings and change the regular meeting time to 6 p.m.
District Administrator Chris Hibner presented the idea of meeting earlier to the board, along with the possibility of having one meeting a month for much of the year, when it came time for the board to set the meeting dates for the 2015-16 school year.
Hibner said because the board meetings can be “lengthy” an earlier start time would help get everybody home at a reasonable hour. Regular attendees of School Board meetings can attest to the fact that most meetings last at least two hours and in many instances much later.
Add to that the board members often meet in closed session after the regular meeting to discuss things such as new hires and salary requirements, the board members are often leaving the meetings well past 10 p.m. on some nights.
And there have been times when the board hasn’t wrapped up until the next day. Board member Martha Bresler said there were meetings that didn’t end until “2 in the morning” and she was all in favor of that stopping, saying the decisions they make at those hours might not always be the wisest.
The board unanimously agreed to the earlier start time, but board member Dawn Buchholtz did say she didn’t want to start at 6 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. and still be getting out at the same time.
Board President Ted Zess said if they went to one meeting a month, the meetings were going to be longer, but he agreed that if they were starting at 6 p.m., he didn’t want to be there to 11 p.m. either.
