Ortiz questions value of trips

Board member not sure district can afford to send him to education conferences

Lawrence school board member Leonard Ortiz said he enjoys tickling his toes in the ocean as much as anyone.

But the newcomer to the board said it would be foolish for the district to spend $1,500 to $2,000 on registration, airfare and a hotel stay to send him to education conferences in San Francisco or Orlando, Fla., given back-to-back years of teacher layoffs and multimillion-dollar budget cuts in the Lawrence public school district.

Packing board members off to vacation havens for meetings on education policy would send a signal to the public that the board’s priorities are haywire, he said.

“They’re very expensive,” said Ortiz, who joined the board in July. “What do we really bring back to the district when we attend these things?”

He stopped short of advocating a moratorium on conference travel by the seven-member school board. But that had more to do with sensing he didn’t have four votes to carry the motion than it did with his conviction that now isn’t the time to go conference hopping, he said.

A majority of the board has expressed support for continued use of district money to help the community’s elected representatives refine their knowledge of education issues. About $6,500 is budgeted annually for board travel. In the last school year, board members spend $4,100.

Normally, the district pays to send several members of the board to the National School Boards Assn. conference in the spring. The issue of conference attendance surfaced because registration for this event starts in September.

Leni Salkind, board vice president, said she was convinced the board’s freshmen — Cindy Yulich, Rich Minder and Ortiz — should go to national-caliber conferences to broaden their thinking. The sooner in their board career the better, she said.

“I’d like to see new board members go at least once,” Salkind said. “It gives you a perspective you can’t possibly get staying home.”

Sue Morgan, who also is in her second term on the board, said it was less important for veteran board members to attend these meetings.

She’s sympathetic to Ortiz’s point, and suggested the district might economize in this area by sending only new board members to major conferences or by selecting meetings that people can attend closer to Lawrence, she said.

“There’s a tension now between the budget demands and the benefits,” Morgan said.

Supt. Randy Weseman said he was wary of board members pulling the plug on professional development opportunities. Conferences hosted by national education organizations bring together experts in the field who wouldn’t be available locally, he said.

Conferences reduced the board’s risk of relying too heavily on district staff for guidance, he said.

“I want board members to think for themselves,” Weseman said. “Unless they participate in those, they become, in my opinion, overly dependent on me.”

Weseman said conferences could be a good investment for the district.

“If you can bring back two or three ideas from this thing, it’s money well spent,” he said. “If we can solve problems, we can save money down the road.

“We have to make an investment now. We can’t just sit back. It’s the same whether there is a budget crisis or there isn’t a budget crisis.”

Ortiz said he would prefer administrators or teachers go to conferences, because they can apply new ideas each day at work.

He said he remained unconvinced the district could afford to send board members to expensive academic conferences.

“Looking back at the budget, I just can’t see it,” Ortiz said. “I can’t consciously go in good faith knowing there is still a struggle in this district.”