School District of Philadelphia Board of Education Action Meeting Written Testimony
November 17, 2022
by Diane Payne
Dear Board of Education,
APPS recently brought to your attention a problem with the Board not receiving written testimony from myself and one other APPS’ member. Three times from September to October, APPS’ members had testimony that was not received. Your answer to the letter APPS sent about this failed to acknowledge the problem we experienced nor did it entertain a possible solution.
Once testimony is sent through the Board’s website, the sender receives nothing in their email to confirm Board receipt and to maintain verification of the sent document. After pushing “send” an automatic message appears saying it was received. But the actual document is gone with no way for the sender to verify what they sent.
It cannot really be considered Community Engagement to send a reply to APPS about this problem which fails to acknowledge what APPS’ members actually experienced. If this has happened three times to us how many times has it happened to others? I am asking that you explore what happened in these three instances. I am also asking that the Board include an email confirmation for each written testimony for the sender’s records.
Update: As I go to the Board’s page for meeting information, I do not see ANY link to send in written testimony. https://www.philasd.org/schoolboard/meetings/#1658338326692-0379b639-ec18 I will forward this via Board members’ emails but WHY is this so confusing and disengaging? Since I am taking the initiative to send through email, I will have verification of when and what I sent.
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 