{"id":2401,"date":"2023-02-16T07:44:32","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T11:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=2401"},"modified":"2023-02-16T07:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T11:44:32","slug":"indepthnh-bill-to-require-school-boards-offer-regular-public-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=2401","title":{"rendered":"InDepthNH: Bill To Require School Boards Offer Regular Public Comment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From InDepthNH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill To Require School Boards Offer Regular Public Comment<\/strong>
By Paula Tracy February 8, 202<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONCORD<\/strong> \u2013 A bill was heard Tuesday by the Senate Education Committee that would require a thirty-minute public comment period at the beginning of all school board meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporters said a structure for such civic discourse would be beneficial and \u201ccalm the waters\u201d which have been pretty choppy the past few years with COVID-19 issues, mask mandates, plummeting academic scores, remote learning, and vaccination issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the New Hampshire School Boards Association opposed Senate Bill 410<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, said she offered Senate Bill 410 after observing what was happening at school board meetings this summer and fall, largely because of concerns of parents related to COVID-19 decisions and restrictions and impacts to education. She said if public comment periods are offered, it is often at the end of the meeting which ends late when parents should be at home with their kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has fueled a lot of the dissent at the meetings, she said, is that parents feel they are not being heard and that has led to arguments, in part because they do not get a chance to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just have to do this better and I thought this was a good place to start,\u201d Carson said of her bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrett M. Christina, executive director of the New Hampshire School Boards Association, opposed the bill on behalf of the association while stressing that they do not oppose public comment. Most boards already do this, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe feel there should be some policy that carves out time place and scope of the public comment period,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some boards do not have a policy and think this is a local issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the organization sent out a survey to school administrative unit offices and heard back from about half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSchool boards are already doing this across the state,\u201d Barrett stated, noting that some are limiting public testimony to three minutes per speaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said there could be some problems if the bill is made law including emergency meetings, called, say if there is a roof that caves in from an ice storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to hold a 30 minute public comment period before that? It doesn\u2019t make sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state Board of Education has not taken public comment in at least about a year, he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been shut down,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just local school boards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Young of Londonderry spoke in support of the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young said he served for 18 years on the Londonderry School District and it never offered a public comment period during his tenure but allowed for comments along with announcements at the end of meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As chair, he said he would always call for the public comment before an important vote, \u201cbut not everybody feels that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He supported the idea of creating a public comment requirement with a time limit allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said offering the public a comment allows for less friction and more consensus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recessing meetings for people to stop talking or walking out of the room and adjourning because of public comment is unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young said presentations and announcements at the beginning of a meeting could also add a public comment, with or without a time constraint, because meetings should not be held up by some artificial 30-minute time frame but there could be limits to how long people can speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it could be nice to have more open communication,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the Complete Article HERE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Londonderry School Board member Bob Slater and Former School Board member Steve Young spoke in support of the bill<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From InDepthNH Bill To Require School Boards Offer Regular Public CommentBy Paula Tracy February 8, 202 CONCORD \u2013 A bill was heard Tuesday by the Senate Education Committee that would require a thirty-minute public comment period at the beginning of all school board meetings. Supporters said a structure for such civic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}