Carroll’s school board aims to seek more community feedback

The Carroll County Board of Education intends to create additional opportunities to listen to community feedback on controversial topics by sending the topics to board-appointed committees and advisory councils for review throughout the year.

School board member Donna Sivigny proposed at an Aug. 14 meeting that the board create a mechanism to send topics to appropriate committees for further discussion, which she said would strengthen the school board’s ability to receive feedback.

“Maybe [we] have a specific agenda item at the end of every meeting to say, ‘is this a topic that would be good to send to one of our board committees, so that we’re constantly thinking about what would be the things that we want feedback on,” Sivigny said.

Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said she could provide such an opportunity, and no vote from the school board was required. Additional opportunities for the school board to seek feedback on a topic could make the Community Advisory Council particularly effective, McCabe said.

“We can certainly do that,” McCabe said, “because we’ve been thinking about what kinds of things would be good for for CAC to discuss and give input on.”

The council, which includes a representative from each public school, was established by the school board in 2009, and serves as a forum for public concerns, advice and communication. The superintendent or school board may call upon the council to make recommendations on matters related to student education.

Board of Education Vice President Tara Battaglia was vocal about her support for the idea.

“That’s an excellent idea,” Battaglia said, “because oftentimes there are things that we have to decide on, or we get reports on, and then come the end of the meeting, we’re like, ‘what if this could be something that could be discussed in one of the committees?'”