When county office of education or school district trustees cannot meet in person, boards must continue to connect and conduct business. During the global pandemic — and in other emergency circumstances — district and county boards are permitted to meet and make board decisions virtually. A virtual school board meeting can be held through a video-based platform or a conference call that allows for public access and comment.
CSBA resources for virtual board meetings
In a spring webinar and blog post, CSBA’s legal team joined with affiliate law partners to offer concrete ideas and examples to help board members answer the questions posed in this article.
CSBA webinar “Open Board Meetings in a World of School Closures”: https://bit.ly/3puXthG.
Read the webinar blog summary at http://blog.csba.org/csba-webinar-meetings/.
Regardless of the modality used, these virtual meetings must be planned and prepared for to achieve the highest levels of productivity, participation and collaboration. How has your district or county office pivoted in order to conduct meetings virtually?
Board members can consider the following questions when planning virtual meetings:
- How do we organize the meeting? What is the platform that will best meet our organization and community needs?
- How is connectivity ensured for each board member to attend virtually? Are the district or county office trustees who may have connectivity issues able to come into the office or a school site?
- How is public comment conducted? Are stakeholders asked to email their comments in? How are time limits enforced?
- How do we conduct closed session?
- How does a board president continue to ensure each trustee is heard?
- Is there a plan to return to in-person board meetings?
- How is the chat, available on most video platforms, being monitored? Who is responsible for that?
- What kind of supports or training might the trustees need to participate fully?
County and district boards have been in uncharted waters, making changes very quickly during this pandemic. Board meetings are a crucial measure of community accountability and boards should strive to make meetings as accessible as possible while keeping the meeting focused on what is important — our students!