Reporting on the front page of last week’s issue of the Lake Oconee News led many readers to believe that the Greene County Board of Education is removing the public comment period from future meeting agendas in an effort to entirely end public comment at BOE meetings. That was incorrect.
On Thursday, May 18, the BOE voted to approve a revised public comment policy that provided for a new procedure for submitting public comments.
However, the public comment period will remain on the agenda for all future BOE regular meeting agendas, and citizens are invited to address the board at all regular monthly meetings, as they have been in the past.
Lake Oconee News provided these questions to be answered by Superintendent Dr. Chris Houston for the opportunity to clarify the revised BOE public comment policy.
A revised public comments policy has been introduced and voted on. Why?
First, I would like to start by establishing that public comment at local Board of Education meetings is a right granted to citizens under Georgia state law. According to GA Code Section 20-2-58, local BOEs are required to “provide a public comment period during every regular monthly meeting.”
A policy revision was recommended by our BOE attorneys.
According to our attorneys, this revision was recommended to provide for a more orderly procedure for submitting public comments addressed to the Board at BOE meetings, in response to concerns nationwide and statewide about disruption at BOE meetings due to public comments getting out of hand because participants refused to follow the rules of engagement.
Thankfully, this has not been much of an issue here in Greene County for the past few years, but we followed the recommendation of our attorneys to revise our local policy, as we do in most cases of recommended policy revisions.
How is the revised policy different from the old policy?
The revised policy simply provides for a new procedure for how public comments are submitted prior to addressing the BOE at each regular monthly meeting. In the past, community members filled out a comment card, called a “Request to Address the Board,” in person at the meeting, which was then handed to the Superintendent and Board Chair during the meeting, and the submitter was invited up to address their comment to the Board if their request was in line with the rules for public participation in addressing the Board.
The only main change is that now, under the revised policy, requests to address the Board must be submitted at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting.
Attendees who wish to address the Board from the podium at the regular monthly meeting will need to come in person to the Greene County School System Administrative Offices located at 101 E. Third St. in Greensboro, where they will fill out the comment form and sign an agreement acknowledging that they understand and will abide by the rules for public participation in addressing the Board.
Then, during the meeting, they will still be invited up to the podium to address their comment directly to the Board. In addition to the regular Public Comment period on the agenda, a new agenda item has been added near the end of the agenda, before the executive session, called “Board Interaction with Public.”
This is where the Board will come down from the dais to disperse among the crowd and talk with the meeting attendees, to further discuss subjects of interest with their constituents and facilitate participation by anyone who may not feel comfortable publicly addressing the Board from the podium during the regular public comment portion of the agenda.
Here are a few things that have NOT changed from the previous version of the policy. Each attendee participating in public comments will still be given a time allotment, three minutes in this case, to speak from the podium during the Public Comments portion of the agenda.
Public comments must still be directly related to an item on the Action Agenda portion of the BOE agenda, and participants must still keep their remarks civil and in line with the BOE’s rules for public participation in addressing the Board. We will continue to live-stream regular monthly BOE meetings as we have been doing for the past 3 years since the COVID-19 Pandemic.
What were some of the problems or concerns with how the previous version of the policy operated that brought about these changes?
In the past, some attendees have taken advantage of the Public Comments portion of the agenda to grandstand personal grievances or other items not related to the BOE agenda.
They might submit a question or comment about an appropriate topic on their Request to Address the Board, and then speak about an entirely different subject when they were invited to the podium.
Requiring participants’ signatures on the agreement stating that they understand and will abide by the public comment rules of engagement should address this problem.
Why do you think there has been voiced opposition to the revised policy?
I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding about what the revised policy means. Some people thought it meant we were doing away with the public comment period at the regular monthly meeting.
Others thought we were going to stop live-streaming the meetings. Still, others thought the 15-minute period of Board interaction with the public that will follow the Action Agenda would be replacing the regular public comment period during the meeting. None of that is true.
We also had an unfortunate technical difficulty during the live stream of the April BOE meeting, which led to part of the proceedings being dropped from the live stream, which included a couple of presentations from the Information Agenda and Consent Agenda portions of the meeting, as well as the Public Comments portion of the meeting. This was due to the internet connection briefly going out.
Those who were in attendance in person at the meeting might remember that the agenda briefly could not be loaded on the screen in the BOE room. However, this led some viewers who were watching the live stream to believe that public comments were no longer going to be a part of the public record of each meeting.
That is not the case. As a side note, this summer we plan to switch the GCSS Administrative Offices from AT&T Internet to Spectrum Internet in an effort to establish a more stable internet connection, which should help our live-stream connection to be more consistent as well.
What do you see are the benefits of the revised policy?
I think the biggest benefit of the revised policy is that it allows myself and the Board to be better prepared to address public comments that will be brought forward at the meetings.
While the Board may not choose to respond to every comment, they still will have had 24 hours of advance notice to gather information in order to be able to address any questions or concerns brought up at the meeting. In the past, they would not have had any advance notice to prepare, and therefore may not have some of the information readily available at hand that would have been needed to address questions or concerns raised during public comments.
What do you think is the biggest change the revised policy is bringing forward?
The biggest change for the public is undoubtedly the 24 hours of advance notice that is now required in order to address the Board, but we will endeavor to make this process seamless for anyone wishing to participate in Public Comments.
On the other hand, the biggest change for myself and my staff is that we will need to have the BOE agendas available to the public earlier, about a week sooner than we would have prior to this policy revision, in order to give the public plenty of time to review the action agenda and submit their comments.
Do you have plans to address concerns about the revised policy at the next BOE Meeting?
Yes, at the June BOE meeting, we plan to address the misconceptions that have been circulating about the revised policy in an effort to better inform the public about the new procedure and reassure attendees that their right to make public comments at Board of Education meetings is not being infringed upon in Greene County, as long as they follow the BOE’s rules for public participation in addressing the Board.