While trustees found common ground on important labor agreements and salary adjustments, the meeting was also riddled with unnecessary distractions — namely, partisan grandstanding, religious justifications, and debates that have little to do with student success.

The two-hour meeting involved an hour and 40 minutes of public comments (many of them  student comments that were articulate and moving) and then 20 minutes of board trustees speaking and finally voting unanimously to keep Girls’ Field Hockey.