Special School Board Meeting Held Last Night

I discovered today that there was a special school board meeting held last night. It sounds like the topic of discussion was further budget cuts. Unfortunately, I didn't know about the meeting, so there is no podcast available.  I have long had a problem with the way that the school notifies the public of special meetings. Below is the letter I sent to Mr. Hancock and every member of the school board outlining my concerns and possible solutions:

Dear Tommy,

I discovered today that there was a special board meeting last night. I wish I had known about it ahead of time so I could have included its podcast on my blog, but I don’t routinely stop by the school to read the window. I realize that the school does the minimum which is required by law as to posting notification of public meetings when someone tapes the notice to the window by the gym and gives the notices to the post offices in hopes that they will post them. I am fully aware that you are loath to start an email list to notify people such as myself (People Concerned About Cloudcroft Schools blog) or Jennifer Smith (the Alamogordo Daily News) of special meetings out of fear that “everyone else” will want to be included in that notification, thus taking too much of your or your staff’s time. However, I think that you need to be open to alternative methods of communication if you are sincerely interested in having the public participate in public meetings.

The school has made significant investments in technology, so I assume that means that you and the school board recognize that it is an important tool in the educational process. Unfortunately, when it comes to public meeting notification no one wants to use the technology that you have readily available. I would suggest that the following notification methods could easily be employed by the school with minimal time and effort. I only suggest that these methods be used when it comes to special public meetings that are convened at the last minute...such as the one that you had last night.

1. Use the phone notification system that the school has in place.
2. Establish an email list and allow members of the public who want to be on that list to add their email addresses.
3. Set up a Twitter or Facebook account that can be updated, then anyone who wants notification can sign up for text or email notification.

If you are truly interested in encouraging public participation, then any of these methods could be implemented quickly and at no cost to the school. Expecting people to stop by the school on a daily basis to see if anything has been taped to the window is not reasonable. It is a waste of time, fuel and energy. It is, however, ideal if you want to do the absolute minimum.