School Board Meetings 101
The SLPS Board of Education meets on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month at 6:30pm at Central Office (801 N. 11th Street). The open session portion begins at 6:30pm. The Board may also call special meetings or hold committee meetings. The district livestreams all open session meetings on its YouTube page or you can attend in person.
Attending a Board Meeting
Board meetings are typically held in Room 108 at Central Office, 801 N. 11th Street. You can park in the parking garage just north of the building on 11th Street. You will need to take a ticket to enter the garage but you will likely not be charged since the garage is only staffed during business hours unless there is a sporting event or some other special occasion. Spots are reserved for the public on the 3rd floor of the garage, but you can park in any open spot since it is after business hours.
Enter the building through the north entrance near the patio/courtyard with red tables. You’ll need to sign in and pass through the metal detector. You may also be subject to a pat-down by security if you set off the alarm. Fair warning, this can sometimes be a bit invasive. Room 108 is just past security on the left side of the hallway.
If you’re wanting to speak during public comment, sign in at the iPad inside the door. When available, printed agendas are located here too.
You can sit in any of the chairs set up facing the dais. Typically, upper-level administrators will sit in the front row. Other staff will sit along either side of the room. The meeting is recorded and live-streamed. If you sit near the podium it is likely you will be visible on the recording.
Sunshine Law Requirements
Public notice must be posted at least 24 hours (excluding holidays and weekends) before a meeting except in cases of an emergency. The notice must include the date, time, and location of the meeting plus the tentative agenda. Currently, the notice/agenda are posted on the district website. The notice/agenda is also posted on the doors of Central Office.
Meetings may be held in open session, in closed session, or both. Open session meetings must allow members of the public to attend either in-person or virtually. Closed session meetings are restricted to specific topics. When in doubt, the meeting should be held in open session.
Minutes must be taken at all meetings and work sessions of the Board and its committees. While the district is currently struggling to meet this requirement, some minutes for meetings, work sessions, and committee meetings are available on the district website.
BoardDocs and the Consent Agenda:
Supporting documents for the meeting are housed in BoardDocs under the “Meetings” tab. Here you can see the meeting’s overall agenda plus the consent agenda. The consent agenda includes all the contracts, memorandums of understanding (MOU), policies, and other agreements the board will be voting on. This allows for many items to be approved at once, however board members have the option to take an item separately to allow for more detailed discussion on the topic. Generally, consent agenda items are assigned a number and a board member will move to approve (vote on) most/all items at once by referring to a range of numbers.
Up through 2023, consent agenda items were posted a month in advance. For example, at the January meeting the consent agenda would have included January items for approval plus the tentative items for approval in February. Beginning in January 2024, the next month’s items were publicly released as part of the work session agenda reducing the review time to only two weeks (in most cases).
To view the consent agenda, select the a meeting date from the column on the left and then click “view the agenda.” You will then be able to scroll through the month’s “items for consideration.” A brief description of each item appears in the left column. If you select the item, the full description including any associated documentation appears in the main window. Here you can see the administrator responsible for the item, its cost and budget source, its relationship to previous agenda items, and background information to justify its purpose. Ideally, the Request for Proposal (RFP) documentation, vendor review, and relevant data are also included.
Contracts and MOUs outline the responsibilities and requirements of SLPS and the vendor/partner. Contracts typically require payment from the district while MOUs do not.
Recommendations to the Board of Education to improve transparency:
Fully utilize all the features of BoardDocs. Upload meeting presentations, minutes, and video links directly into BoardDocs so the public doesn’t have to go on a scavenger hunt across multiple websites to obtain the desired information. Many other local school districts already do this.
Return to posting consent agenda items a month in advance. This provides more time for the public to be made aware of items and allows more public engagement.