On Jan. 31, 2023, Mahomet-Seymour Board President Max McComb wrote an opinion piece for the News-Gazette in rebuttal to what board member Meghan Hennesy said at the Jan. 17, 2023, regularly scheduled board of education meeting. The following are just excerpts from those pieces. Hennesy’s speech (Jan. 17) can be found here. McComb’s opinion piece (Jan. 31) can be found here.
This project is not an attempt to look at every issue that was brought up in its entirety. This publication has reported on some of these issues before. In those cases, links are provided so that each reader can learn more about the issue. The articles that follow are an attempt to look at the claims each board member brought up. In some cases, one board member named others. In those cases, this publication looked at what happened surrounding those claims. All of the articles can be found on this page. Each article also includes documents and videos referenced.
We understand that this piece comes two months after these events took place. We have taken time to watch discussions of every topic over the last three years, to look at board agendas and minutes from the same time period, to read emails, to send FOIA requests and to undertake a major project in analyzing TIF data. This work took time, and that is why it took so long to complete.
Hennesy Quotes
And in point of fact, the board had decided that that meeting was supposed to be about talking about district goals. And you’ll see it on an agenda tonight. But it’s only because I followed up after the agenda items had been released and said we did as the board decide we were going to talk about district goals in January. This is the last meeting that we could do that. We should put that on there. Now, do I think a real discussion about goals is going to go on shoehorned in between all the other things that we have listed here tonight? No I don’t. And do I think that we’re seriously gonna take a look at that? I do not. Because the study session would have been the place to do that. And instead, we just canceled it because we didn’t have anything to do.
Meghan Hennesy
Looking Back
A board item on Oct. 17, 2022 prompted a discussion about setting district goals. After discussion about what types of goals needed to be set, and how the district might approach a strategic plan, the five board members present: Hennesy, Lamb, McComb, McMurry and Schultz agreed that Superintendent Lee would present district goals to the board of education at the Jan. study session. That meeting was canceled due to lack of agenda items.
The thought was that Superintendent Lee was tasked with listening during his first six months of employment with Mahomet-Seymour. January would be the end of those six months.
The meeting where that discussion was supposed to take place was the study session on Jan. 6. The meeting was canceled due to lack of agenda items.
At the Jan. 17 meeting (after Hennesy left), Lee talked about the need for goals related to attendance, a support learning environment that aligns with students feeling safe, school staff effectiveness and retention, engaging families, visibility in the community and resources, including facilities and finances in increasing commercial EAV. Hennesy said these items were not on the original agenda, but was included on Jan. 17 because she reminded the district that it should be.
Lee said he will come back to the board in a couple months with options for a strategic plan that would be developed in the fall.
Materials used in this article
