Board President Nike Prieston Bach said the Board traditionally met Tuesday nights but switched last year to Monday’s because of a board member’s work schedule. The agenda had a resolution establishing meetings on Tuesdays again because the switch was considered temporary, Bach said.

Three new members and one incumbent were sworn in that evening, following last month’s election.

Incumbent Patricia Fromholtz and new members Jeffrey McCartney and Ik-Seung Pak will serve three-year terms. Anthony Grasso will serve one-year in an unexpired term.

The Board selected Bach and Vice President Shelley Perino to keep their titles again.

Board Member Abraham Ravid said Tuesday nights conflicted with his teaching schedule and he’d prefer if the meetings could stay on Monday nights.

Fromholtz said residents were used to meetings on Tuesday and Monday is when council meetings are. She wasn’t happy with the change and said it caused the most absenteeism that she’s ever seen at meetings.

"We lost two good Board members because of that," Fromholtz said.

Ravid said that wasn’t the reason former members decided not to run again, but Fromholtz said it was the last straw for them.

Bach said there were some meetings in which the Board did have trouble getting a quorum but that it shouldn’t be an issue with the new members.

Fromholtz said she was waiting to set her own work schedule based on what night meetings will be.

Grasso said he didn’t think a debate over Monday or Tuesday meetings should get the Board into a heated discussion. Bach suggested the resolution could be pulled and discussed later, but board member Tom Quinton, who made the motion for a vote, wanted to settle the issue. Quinton is a member of the Edgewater Board of Education as well.

The Board voted on the resolution to hold meetings on the second and third Tuesdays but it failed with just four votes.

Bach then took a motion for a resolution for meetings on the third and fourth Mondays but that also got just four votes.

"We have to meet sometime," Bach said after the second failed vote.

Ravid suggested that maybe they can compromise and have half the meetings on Monday and half Tuesday. Bach said she thought that had come up in discussion last year. Quinton said that since the change to Monday had happened in September last year that was in effect what the Board had done.

Superintendent Bernard Josefsberg suggested that, assuming it’s legal to adopt a partial schedule, the Board could set the meetings on Tuesday nights from May through December. Ravid’s potential conflict in schedule would start in January.

Josefsberg said the January through April 2009 meetings can be set as "to be determined" and resolved later.

The Board unanimously passed that resolution, pending a check to make sure it is all right to approve a partial schedule.