
Since his appointment to the board of a west metro school integration district, John Solomon has been missing in action more often than not.
Minutes of board meetings for the West Metro Education Program show that Solomon missed 18 of 26 meetings since he was named Brooklyn Center's representative to the integration board.
Solomon said this week that he's planning to ask the Brooklyn Center board, on which he also serves, to name a replacement. But the attendance issue highlights a bigger complaint made by dissident parents about the board of WMEP, which operates two arts-focused schools in Minneapolis and Crystal that go by the name of FAIR. They say it's out of touch, a charge disputed by Vice Chair Julie Sweitzer.
"I think that the board has been quite engaged with the FAIR schools," Sweitzer said. The parent-teacher group demurred.
"Time and again, [joint powers board] members demonstrate, for whatever reason, that they are uniformed about many issues connected to WMEP," the parents said in a cover letter to a dossier they last week asked the board to review. The dossier covered alleged misdeeds by the district's sole principal, Kevin Bennett, whom they want the board to fire.

Part of the group's frustration is that the WMEP board doesn't have the normal accountability to parents that marks most school boards. That's because the boards of the 10 member suburban districts and Minneapolis each appoint one WMEP board member. So parents typically get to vote for or against only the board member who runs in the school district where they live. And in Minneapolis, since the school board's WMEP representative, Kim Ellison, is elected form a North Side district, only one-sixth of that city's voters get a vote for or against her.
A set of recommendations to the WMEP board from two ex-superintendents of WMEP member districts, Ken Dragseth of Edina and Toni Johns of Brooklyn Center, noted that parents want more involvement in the board's proceedings. The consultants recommended a parent advisory group meet monthly with WMEP's top administrator and at least two board members.
The ex-superintendents also found that the format of the board hampered its supervision. Board members are appointed by the boards of their home districts and seven of 11 board members turned over at the start of the year. That has slowed the board's decision-making process on other major questions posed in the report by the consultants. One remedy would be to stagger the expiration of terms on the WMEP board.