Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Personnel Issues topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Jody Bivald says district bullying policy excludes staff‑to‑staff incidents, asks about superintendent's removal
Summary
Public commenter Jody Bivald told the board she filed a bullying prohibition report and said the district's written response indicated the cited statutes and policy apply only to student‑to‑student incidents; she urged the board to address staff‑to‑staff reporting and asked whether the superintendent had been removed from the building.
At the meeting a Long Prairie resident, Jody Bivald, addressed the board to report filing a bullying prohibition complaint and to challenge the district's response.
"On Tuesday, February 18, I filed a bullying prohibition report form," Bivald said, noting she had printed the district's bullying policy (policy 514) and its summary from the website. She said the policy's sections list students, teachers, administrators, volunteers, contractors and other employees in the conduct the district will investigate and discipline, but that the district's letter back to her indicated the cited statutes and policy applied only to student‑to‑student or student‑to‑individual incidents.
Bivald told the board she reviewed policy 514 with the statutes referenced in the district response and concluded that the language could be read to allow "anyone, staff to staff, me to you, any individual to any individual other than students, can bully without any consequences." She asked the board to consider the ethical concerns in the district's broader policies and asked whether Superintendent Levison had been removed from the building and whether that removal had been the subject of a special meeting.
The chair thanked Bivald for her comments and asked for clarification on pronouncing her name. The transcript records the district's reply to Bivald in the form of a letter cited by the speaker (identified in the transcript as a letter from a district official) that said the particular policy and the referenced statutes were limited to student‑to‑student or student‑to‑individual situations; the transcript does not include an oral board response addressing the substance of Bivald's allegations at the time of her comments.
A separate public commenter urged the board to reinstate "Daniel" as superintendent and said he and his family had supported board members at the polls; that commenter said staff and students miss the superintendent. The transcript records those comments as public input to the board; there was no immediate formal action recorded in response to either public commenter during the open meeting portion.
The board later moved into a closed session listed on the amended agenda to consult with counsel about a potential imminent legal action related to an employee claim and the district's defenses; the chair announced that topic when adding the closed session to the agenda earlier in the meeting.
