Ë®¹ûÅÉAV

Joseph Sheppard, who was elected Auburn Enlarged City School District Board of Education president last year, and Ian Phillips both vied for the role at a district reorganization meeting Thursday. Both expressed interest in the president post at a meeting last week.

At Thursday's meeting, Sheppard was nominated for the spot by board member Salvatore "Sam" Giangreco, and Phillips was nominated by Danielle Wood.Ìý

Sheppard received votes from himself, Giangreco, Jeff Gasper and new board member Matteo Bartolotta. Phillips was picked by himself, Wood, Dr. Eli Hernandez and Dr. Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson. Board member William Andre was not present at the meeting.Ìý

Due to the tie, Auburn Superintendent Jeff Pirozzolo said the decision would be tabled until all nine board members are present. The next board meeting is July 20, but the district could hold an emergency meeting before then.

Voting for a board vice president was also delayed. Hernandez, the current vice president, and Gasper had previously stated their intention to pursue that role.

Pirozzolo said that according to the district's laws, Sheppard will continue to serve as president until the spot is officially voted on. He said the next meeting will begin with the leadership decisions.

Phillips became a board member in 2018 and is an employee with the New York State United Teachers union. He left his position as chair of the Cayuga County Democratic Committee last month after serving in the role for over six years.

"I'm running for president because I think we face a very challenging year, but one that is also full of opportunity," he said.

Phillips acknowledged the difficulties students, teachers and families dealt with throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and said they are "overwhelmed by the burdens placed on them through no fault of their own."

"It is easy to point the finger at others, 'Somebody should do something,' pass blame when things don't go the way they want, but our opportunity is in coming together, taking the strengths of our students, our staff, parents and community and merging them to the benefit of all of us," he said.

He also talked about some changes he would like to discuss and implement with the board, including "making sure we have agendas and presentations to the board at least one week in advance" so members can have more fruitful conversations when the board comes together and creating a communications committee and a negotiations committee.

"I'm running because I do have ideas about how we can move forward as a board and district and I'm willing to do the work," Phillips said.

Sheppard, who was first voted onto the board in 2017 and served as vice president in 2018 and 2019 before securing the president post last year, said he's excited for the upcoming school year and "a potential return to some normalcy." He also said he was inspired by the words of the student speakers at Auburn High School's Class of 2021 commencement ceremony last week.

Sheppard noted that while he feels the board did what it felt was best for students and the community at the time, he believes the board stopped focusing on students' needs and "how best to support them," and instead shifted to "managing one manufactured crisis after another."

He also mentioned that he personally didn't agree with several of the decisions the board made last school year.

"In fact, there were many occasions where I requested that we not move forward with a discussion out of fear that it may potentially derail student-focused plans moving forward. The fact that we did move forward with many of these discussions falls on me as president, as I worked incredibly carefully to follow our board policies that state that the role of the board is to support the decisions of the board once they are decided upon," he said.

He referenced a proposal to rename the high school, which led to community members debating the topic for months before the process was paused by the board at a meeting in late May.Ìý

Sheppard said Thursday that while the board did not spend much time discussing the proposal "while we ran it through the process outlined by our current policy as best we could," it occupied a great deal of the time and energy that should have been focused on ways to move the district forward instead.Ìý

He said that he asked back in January that the proposal not be brought forward.

"I said it then and I'll say it now: We did not need this distraction and we needed to focus our energy on the other initiatives that the district had at that time," he said.

Sheppard said he and Phillips spoke the day before the meeting. Sheppard said they agree on many points but have "a fundamental disagreement on our role as board members, what we can or cannot do, and how the board gets things done." He said he believes these disagreements are an area for conversation and potential training for the entire board and a "place where we can find middle ground" to move the board and district forward.

Bartolotta, Giangreco and Phillips were all sworn in as board members earlier in the meeting, since all three were elected to three-year terms in May.Ìý

In other news

• A new board committee is moving forward, while another was suggested but not confirmed.

Phillips on Thursday suggested the creation of a negotiations committee. He said there are such committees in districts throughout the state, and that it would be a dedicated group to research and review contracts with staff and outside vendors to ensure the processes and language involved are understood and that the agreements are fair for all parties involved.Ìý  

Pirozzolo said the negotiation of contracts with the bargaining units is between union leaders, the superintendent and the assistant superintendent for personnel.

"That is our job and responsibility. It is our job to share that with you, if you want to figure out a different way to share that, I don't have an issue with that," he said. "We can put protocols in place."

Overstreet-Wilson said she wanted more information on what the committee would do and what it would entail.Ìý

A communications committee was also brought forward. Sheppard said this group would help craft the responses to people who come to speak at the public comment portions of board meetings, create responses to questions or problems and would work with Jessica Luisi, the district's public information specialist.

Board members asked for a policy, process or charter for such a committee to be devised if the district can't find a charter from Erie I BOCES, which puts together policies for school districts, so Camille Johnson, Auburn's assistant superintendent for student services, was asked to look into that.