At the January 2024 meeting of the Forest Hills School District (FHSD) Board of Education, the FHSD community received an explanation behind Board Vice President Katie Stewart’s “NO” vote on that evening’s consent agenda … screen time. On the agenda was a budget item including new Lenovo Chromebooks. Like most parents, she was worried about kids having too much screen time. But I think this vote points to a larger issue with Mrs. Stewart’s performance on the board of our public school district.
Katie Stewart may not understand what a consent agenda is. Consent agendas consist of multiple procedural items, expected to garner unanimous approval. By voting “NO” on the January 2024 consent agenda, Mrs. Stewart voted “NO” on all items within the agenda.
During the January 2024 Meeting Board Vice President Katie Stewart Voted “NO” on the Following Items:
Retirements, resignations, leave of absences, appointments, change of salaries or titles, substitute personnel, volunteers, academic calendar updates, cooling and loop system water treatment program, secondary course guide updates, summer school dates and fees, overnight field trips, the Children’s Home of Cincinnati contract, a worker’s compensation settlement, the Treasurers report, and yes … the Lenovo lease agreement for new Chromebooks.
I hope that Katie Stewart learns proper procedure for dissenting on a single consent agenda item. But on multiple occasions, during public comment, community members have reminded her about procedure, and Mrs. Stewart either ignored the commentary, or failed to retain the information.
Mrs. Stewart often relies on her qualifications as an “educator,” but lacks a bachelor’s degree in education (or any other subject). Yet, as someone who has claimed enough experience to be Board Vice President, I expect her to know that a single item can be removed from the consent agenda for individual discussion and vote. Then, the record would indicate her “NO” vote on that single item and “YES” votes on the remaining agenda, giving it unanimous consent.
There is also an issue with hypocrisy and flip-flopping. On August 17, 2022, Katie Stewart reported that FHSD schools would switch from MAP testing to iReady assessments. I remember this meeting, because her excitement about iReady as Chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee made me excited too. I was looking forward to the metrics, and visualizing my daughter’s progress in reading and math. I even remember talking about iReady at that week’s Sherwood Elementary PTO meeting. But as Chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee, did Mrs. Stewart realize that assessments took place on the Lenovo Chromebooks? Or has “independent research” changed Katie’s mind about the district’s 1:1 technology policy?
To expand on the issue of hypocrisy, Katie Stewart currently sends her kids to private school. But does she know that the school attended by her kids has a 1:1 technology policy similar to the Forest Hills School District? On their website, Guardian Angels School boasts a typical classroom setup that includes the following technology:
- Grades K-4 are provided individual iPads for each student and have desktop computers in classrooms for student use.
- Grades 5-8 – All students have their own school-supplied PC Tablet that they use for all core subjects. Units are assigned to them.
- All classrooms have a Clevertouch interactive touchscreen. This allows teachers to display lessons from on-line textbooks. K-5 students can participate in interactive lessons on a large screen display. Teachers can meet the different needs of a student by presenting curriculum in different modalities to best meet the learning styles of each student.
Their website also states that “Students are provided a Tablet PC by Guardian Angels School through Cincinnati Public School auxiliary funds.” This is evidence of private schools using public money, free of oversight, and free from board members like Mrs. Stewart complaining about screen time.
Her “NO” vote on this topic says to me that Vice President Stewart is trying to undermine the quality of our public school district while sending her kids to private schools.
Why does it seem like Stewart is trying to parent all children in the district from her bully pulpit? Just because she has concerns about the screen time of her own children, doesn’t give her the right to speak on behalf of all parents. Not everyone has issues with limiting screen time at home. In my household, we have certain days that the kids can watch television or play games on their tablets after school. But it is not every day.
I talk to my daughters and ask what they did at school. It usually doesn’t involve computers unless it is for iReady assessments or to play the Prodigy math game as a reward for meeting their learning goals. Computers are not used as often as Mrs. Stewart thinks, and they are not used by the teachers for “busy work” as she insinuated to me, in-person after the January 2024 board meeting.
This level of ignorance on the FHSD Board of Education is dangerous. The hypocrisy and flip-flopping is causing me whiplash. We all deserve better than this as parents, grandparents, caregivers and community members. We deserve board members that want to give our kids the same opportunities as other students, without trying to parent our children, or tell us how to parent, from their position of power. We need to thoughtfully consider Mrs. Stewart’s position on the board if she chooses to run for reelection in 2025. Because we all want better for the Forest Hills School District.
This level of ignorance on the FHSD Board of Education is dangerous. The hypocrisy and flip-flopping is causing me whiplash. We all deserve better than this as parents, grandparents, caregivers and community members. We deserve board members that want to give our kids the same opportunities as other students, without trying to parent our children, or tell us how to parent, from their position of power. We need to thoughtfully consider Mrs. Stewart’s position on the board if she chooses to run for reelection in 2025. Because we all want better for the Forest Hills School District.
Advocate FHSD 