Who does a public school board meeting belong to: the board or the public?
Back at the Oklahoma City School Board’s Sept. 2 meeting, Chairman Kirk Humphreys said he doesn’t think patrons should be able to raise personnel issues during public comments, upsetting the few parents in attendance.
Although his comments were made a few weeks ago, I’m bringing them up now because of a column in the most recent issue of The School Administrator magazine, which I just received.
The column is by Nicholas Caruso with the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. You can read the whole piece here, but one line in particular intrigued me. He wrote:
The board meeting is a meeting held in public,
not a public meeting.
It seems to me that view aligns with Humphreys’ comments, while the parents I spoke with afterward said they feel as though the meetings belong to them.
What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
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Comments
Wendy, I think it would be good to address the purpose of the school board. I work in education and do not have a finite answer for that question.
I think the school board should have some sort of mission statement like all other organizations where this issue should be addressed. It should not be up to one member of the board, but rather should be a position of the board as a whole, and then the public will have a clearer idea and can address it from there!
What is the point of the meeting being open to the public, if the public cannot comment?
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I think that parents should be able to raise ANY issue/question/concern during the meetings regardless of their content. After all, our school systems are funded by their (the parents) money so they should at least be heard by the people that are essentially employeed by them.