The Ann Arbor school board was given a thorough update on life at Huron and Pioneer high schools Wednesday, and continued to discuss board members’ access to superintendent applications.

Faculty members — including athletics, counselors, administrators and teachers — gave the board a two and a half hour rundown of what life is like at two of Ann Arbor’s comprehensive high schools.

The presenters gave data garnered from surveys of students, which they say highlighted both the good and the bad aspects of the learning experience at those schools. Huron Principal Arthur Williams said staffs at the high schools need to do a better job of communicating with students.

“Even if you see the same things, the students may see one thing, and the staff may see another,” he said, mentioning a 20-percent gap between student and teacher response to whether teachers care. “It told us areas we need to concentrate on to grow for the staff and students.”

Board members came away from the meeting impressed at both the schools’ ability to work together, despite the natural rivalry and the scope of the presentation.

Trustee Irene Patalan said the report was exciting.

“When I heard all of the educators stand up and talk about the good things that we’re doing, I thought, ‘We really do have a lot to be proud of,’” she said. “We’ve been hearing the call to change nationally and locally for many reasons, some of which are financial … but in five years, I’ve seen this change while sitting at this table.”

The board also continued a discussion that began last week about members’ access to the applications of superintendent candidates.

Trustees appear to be at an impasse, with three wanting to have access to the applications, three willing to leave them to the professional search firm of Ray & Associates, and President Deb Mexicotte casting the deciding vote.

However, no resolution will come before the board until further discussion with the firm.

Trustee Christine Stead said gaining access to the applications for all trustees to review calls into question why the board hired the search firm in the first place.

“One of the things they bring, other than networking and a process, is the capacity to put staff into reviewing that many applicants,” she said. “If we go down this path of not trusting that and thinking we can identify better candidates than that, a lot of this (is already) our criteria and our checkpoints, and if we have started to identify candidates that way, it means we’re going to distrust the process.”

The applications wouldn't be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests as long as they were the property of Ray & Associates, Mexicotte told the board. That fact seemed to prompt some trustees to want access to the applications.

Trustee Simone Lightfoot said she wants access to the applications, not to pick her own candidates and favorites, but to check that the firm is doing the things the board hired it to do.

“I want to verify that we did a national search and want to see if we were diverse (in the process),” she said. “If I am being held accountable for this process, which is not in place yet, I want to know that I did all that was expected of me to do.”