In what has become typical for Ms. Stanley, instead of trying to understand what people are communicating to her, she focused on scoring political points—this time, it’s with her crusade to pay the Transportation Consultants for the terrible job they did on services the Board never approved.

As usual, she made her argument with confidence and condescension, implying that Ms. Joly was deliberately misreading the policy (175), arguing that the BOE does not need to approve the services Consultants provide to the District.

To prove her point, she quoted this policy directly:

“An independent consultant may have access to such school facilities and school district employees as may be reasonably required in the performance of the consultant’s contract with the Board.”

As Ms. Joly pointed out afterward, she neglected to read the sentence directly after that:
“Except as expressly permitted by the contract, any communication between the consultant and a district employee or community member regarding the work of the contract must be conducted through the Board or a designated school official.”

In other words, Natasha was correct; however, the consultants were paid as Pam had a majority last night, given several BOE members who probably would have voted against it couldn’t attend. Pam couldn’t wait for the attorney to offer his opinion on the matter as Natasha requested, so the District ended up paying for services the BOE never approved.

This may create a problem for the District as it flies in the face of those crazy rules that govern how District dollars are spent.

Congratulations to Pam, the consultants who did a terrible job, and everyone who stayed up at night worried about this issue.

Here is a link to the full policy.

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