Wednesday’s special Ketchikan School Board meeting scheduled to make up for last week’s canceled meeting was canceled, for the most part. But, the board did listen to public comment before adjourning.
MJ Cadle spoke about the district’s recent teacher training for children who have experienced trauma. She thanked the district for that training session, and suggested ways to improve it.
Cadle said educators in the district generally don’t want to know any details of a child’s trauma, and that means they don’t have all the information they need to work through it.
“You have to know more than, ‘OK, they were abused.’ There’s a lot more to it, because different abuse results in different actions by the child, and different behaviors and different responses,” she said. “So a sexually abused child is going to behave differently than a beaten child, that is going to behave differently than a neglected child.”
Cadle also discussed comments by board members during the Aug. 22 school board meeting, which had to be canceled after a legally required notice was printed with the wrong date.
Board Member Glen Thompson couldn’t attend that meeting, but had written a letter berating Superintendent Robert Boyle for the error. It was read aloud at his request by another board member.
Cadle said that was inappropriate.
“In six years that I’ve been coming to meetings, that was the first meeting – and I understand we’re having another one – the first meeting that I have ever attended that had any kind of a problem,” she said. “So, there’s a pretty fair history of having meetings on time for someone to be drawn and quartered publicly. And not by you, really. You had someone do your dirty work.”
Wednesday’s special meeting was supposed to make up for the Aug. 22 canceled meeting. However, one of the school buildings failed to put a notice of the special meeting on its bulletin board.
Board Vice President Kim Hodne announced Wednesday that another special meeting is set for 6 p.m. Friday in borough assembly chambers to make up for both canceled meetings.
