"Closed session" sounds so much better than "in secret",

but the effect is the same.

Journal education reporter Hailey Heinz continues the Journal's riveting coverage of APS Supt Winston Brooks' "evaluation, link.  She writes; "School board members, who met (two times) in "closed session" this week to start evaluating Brooks...".

Recognizing that the law provides for meetings in secret, who is kidding whom, they met in closed session in order that their conduct and competence during the evaluation process remain secret from public knowledge.  That the law "allows"them to meet in secret for nearly any reason, they are not required to meet in secret except under very specific circumstances that truly warrant meeting in secret.

What good and ethical reasons compel Winston Brooks' entire evaluation process to be conducted in secret?  If only there were a place where legitimate questions can be asked, and the leadership of the APS is in any way, required to respond candidly, forthrightly and honestly.

We will never really know what they do in secret because their descriptions of what they considered, required by law to be "reasonably specific" are not. Their simple citation of the law fails to provide reasonable specificity by any honest measure.

By their deliberate choice, they don't record these meetings even though the recording would be protected from public knowledge except by a court order.  There really is no good and ethical reason to not create an incontrovertible record of their public service.