Hello APA Staff and Parents!
I hope your winter break went well and that you enjoyed the change of pace. We are very happy to be back in full swing at school and to have welcomed back many of our students. Our teachers and staff members will begin immunizations this week, and so we are feeling optimistic that a brighter day is close ahead!
Several in our APA community have asked for an update on the special education penalty and appeal process that I mentioned in my last email update on this subject (December 4).
The APA Governing Board did choose to appeal the penalty, and the appeal would have been due January 7th, except that we believed the USBE had made an error when they discussed our audit in a closed meeting instead of in an open public meeting, and so we notified them of that error and they agreed that they should not have adjourned to a closed session for the discussion.
In Utah, there is a law for public agencies called the Open Public Meetings Act and this law dictates the rules for how meetings of public agencies are conducted. Because of this mistake, the penalty they voted to impose at December’s meeting is removed. The USBE will need to reconsider the audit in an open, public meeting and decide how much, if any, APA should repay. We believe this will happen at the February board meeting of the USBE.
We feel it is important that we have a chance to speak to the USBE members about the audit before they decide upon a penalty, especially one of this potential size. Thus far, we have only been given 2 minutes in a public comment part of their board meeting, twice. Public comment is first thing in the morning of their meetings. Our audit has been on their agenda to be discussed much later in the day, so our 2 minutes in the morning has understandably not been very effective. When the USBE went into closed session, we were effectively shut out and unable to speak to the issue at all during the portion of the meeting where the issue was on the agenda. We also were unable to hear any of the information being said by the USBE staff about the audit to the USBE members. It is important that we hear this discussion so we can know how to approach our appeal, and which areas need clarifying.
We are grateful that the USBE members realized their mistake and are willing to re-hear this issue at a later time.
We felt it important that you know that, at this point, there is no penalty in place since the violation of the open meetings act requires that any business conducted following an improper closed meeting is invalid. We welcome another chance to educate board members and help them make a better decision. Additionally, there are 8 new board members (of the 15 total members) that were recently elected or appointed to the USBE so there is a lot of work to be done in getting information out to them and bringing them up to speed on this issue.
We cannot tell you how grateful we have been for the words of encouragement and support we have received from parents and staff members. Thank you for taking the time to let us know of your experiences and your support. It is very helpful! We anticipate there will come another time in the near future where we will need your help and support as we continue to fight this battle. We appreciate your support and reconfirm our commitment to “do what’s best for kids” at APA.