Members of the community, including teachers, school officials, parents and others packed into Zane Grey Intermediate School as the Zanesville City Schools Board was scheduled to address a controversial agenda.

Just weeks after the Zanesville City Schools renewal levy was passed by voters, four items on Wednesday night’s school board meeting agenda included administrative contract renewals or continuances.

“There’s several administrators in the district that will be approved or be considered this time around,” Superintendent Doug Baker said. “We’ll have some in December and some in January, and we’re just pacing those out.”

Katie Sites, President of Zanesville Education Association and a special education teacher at Zanesville Middle School, stood up to voice opinions on behalf of the ZEA asking the board to postpone the approval of the renewed contracts.

“We had a levy voted in, we have two new board members coming in and we just felt that as these contracts that aren’t due until July, that allowing our new board members to come in and get their feet wet and at least get through one meeting, and also to allow the public to see the minutes to understand what’s being voted on and to be able to express an opinion rather than just trying to get them through quickly before the board leaves,” Sites said.

While she explained that the current board has been working on the contracts, and it’s understandable to want to finish a task that was started, the ZEA fears that it could make the community look negatively upon the board.

“So many people were disheartened by the way our meetings are run that the agenda is never out in a timely manner for them to even look at it to for them to have the ability to look at these items before they (the board) vote on them,” Sites said recalling her experience campaigning for the ZCS levy prior to the election.

Despite the negative views, Sites said that many of the procedures followed by the ZCS board are normal, but there is little to no explanation of that to the community.

“The community was very angry, to put it easy, about our board just passing what they want and administration getting raise upon raise, and I think what they see is even if it’s a small raise or small stipend or something that’s very typical they see it pushed through so quickly and they don’t have all the information so they make assumptions,” Sites said.

After Sites finished speaking in front of the board, she and another ZEA members received a standing ovation from community members in attendance.

The Zanesville Education Association asked the board to postpone items I8 pertaining to the continuing contract status of Superintendent Doug Baker as a teacher, J10 pertaining to the renewal of Treasurer Mike Young’s contract from August 2020 through July 2025, J12 pertaining to the renewal of Assistant Superintendent Steve Foreman’s contract during the same dates and J13 pertaining to the renewal of Director of Facilities/Services Matthew Hittle’s contract during the same dates.

Following over an hour-long executive session in which new ZCS board members were brought up to the speed on the agenda items in questions, as well as the discussion of other items, board members returned to a smaller crowd as people trickled out during the long wait.

The standing ovation and request from the public was partially heard by the board, as only item, J10 pertaining to the treasurer, was approved by the board by a four to one vote for the approval. Board member Vicky French voted against the approval.

“The board made that decision coming out of executive session that that’s the one that they felt everyone had enough information on and decided to move forward,” Baker said. “And they wanted additional information on the others.”

The remaining three items that were brought to the board’s attention were tabled until further notice.

“I believe they (the board) wanted more research on those couple items that they had. They want to be able to provide some more clarifying language and rational prior to approval,” Baker said.

He added that some of the items may be tabled until December or January.

The current and new board members will research and obtain additional information in order to decide what they want out of those contracts.

Baker said it will be up to the board once they obtain that information as to how they choose to move forward with informing the public.