By Donnelly Clare

The Stevens Point School Board Monday night made some last-minute rearrangements to its meeting agenda, also spending its first ten minutes debating whether to actually go into closed session tonight as scheduled to discuss negotiations with the local teacher’s union. Some board members suggested they needed to begin policing the length of board meetings after several complaints stemming from late- night meeting adjournments, including some ending after midnight.

The lengthy meetings became such a problem that city leaders last year decided to stop airing the school board meeting on the city’s community access television station.

“I mean, this is tonight’s packet, people,” said Board Member Kim Shirek, holding up 235 pages which accompanied the meeting agenda. “We need to start getting out of here at a reasonable hour.”

Board Member Chris Scott said any agreement to adjourn at a specific time was irresponsible.

“You know, we have a lot of work to be done for kids, parents and the community,” Scott said. “And everybody wants to leave early- I work all day long- but I’m willing to do the work that needs to be done. When work needs to be done, it needs to be done.”

Board Member Bob Larson argued the board was wasting time debating early adjournment.

“Instead of wasting an hour of time talking about this, why don’t we just jump that bridge when we get there,” Larson suggested. “We should just move on to business.”

Check back for updates from Bliss.