Rsponse to Jonathan Jaffe's post of 2/25/2011 referencing the 2/15 Community Forum summary:

Jonathan- In response to your post of 2/25/2011.

I was the taskforce member that shared with Jonathan a set of boiler-plate bylaws constructed for the TBS bylaws taskforce by the legal counsel we had hired to be used as a jumping-off point for discussions and revision. At the time I shared this document and at the time the taskforce held the first Community Forum (Feb 15th), this document had not been reviewed by the by the bylaws taskforce nor by the Board. I shared this document with Jonathan with the intention of getting his professional feedback. At that point the task force had done no work on it, as we had primarily been focusing on designing the rewrite process and organizing for the upcoming community forums.


I believe Jonathan's comments references Freyja's (summary author and meeting scribe) comment in the Summary:
"Requests to see a draft of the proposed bylaws for community review and comments/discussion.
o When the bylaws taskforce has a draft, it will be made available for review. Currently, there is no draft by the taskforce. The taskforce is collecting input from multiple directions: the board, legal council, parents, teachers, admin."
What Freyja meant, which was true, by this was there was no draft created by the taskforce that we had done any work on. I think there is a wording issue here that makes is confusing. But I assure you the comment was not meant as a cover up, as your post implied.

In addition I think Daralyn Durie and Ann Fisher-Hecht, at different times, in response to audience comments/questions said that there was no such draft, meaning a board sanctioned document that all the Committee had worked on and the Board had sanctioned. I believe Daralyn said there was a working "draft" document, but there was not a draft that was ready to be circulated. Ann said the same and noted that at this point Board members had not yet seen a draft. He heard a denial of the existence of a draft. I think this was a case of semantics (a draft by the taskforce ready for public comment versus any existing draft).

I also want to say that everyone on the Committee is aware that I sent Jonathan the draft. Since that time "the Committee", which consists of a very intelligent and thoughtful group of people with a wide variety of views and positions, has been spending many hours hashing this document out and working to gather all points of info/interest to craft the best way to set these bylaws forth. This rewrite process is still happening and we do now have a draft ready for comment.

I understand there are many strong feelings about all of this- which instigate great thought and conversation.
However,I truly believe in order for the process to be successful it means not only hearing but listening- with an open mind and heart- all of us. And it means balancing best practice with right action.
Thanks.
Dobee Snowber
Co-chair, Bylaws Task Force Committee