This week’s (November 11, 2011 Leader newspaper has an editorial "Pandemic Taught Us How to have Truly Open Meetings" written by Kim Robertson noting how some governmental meetings have become more accessible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That's why it’s important to look back and see how much things have improved over the past decade when it comes to transparency in the Fox C-6 School District and just how long it took for that happen. The Fox C-6 community was kept in the dark during former superintendent Dianne Brown/Critchlow’s tenure. From 2005 until 2014, Fox C-6 school board meetings weren’t audio or video recorded. Not having audio or video recording school board meetings made it very easy to keep anyone outside of Fox’s administration, school board and the few who attended school board meetings from learning about what was happening behind the scenes at Fox or what patrons concerns were in the district. Over the years, I wrote articles about speaking at Fox BOE meetings asking our school board to audio or video record the meetings like they did in other school districts. I even emailed examples of website links to other school districts to our school board. Dianne Critchlow would respond and tell me that it was up to our school board as to whether or not to audio or video record BOE meetings. Video Recorded School Board Meetings It’s great that we now have video recordings of our school board meetings. It allows more people in our community learn about our district and watch Public Comments as well as discussions about decisions being made in our district. It also provides the opportunity to see some of the great things happening in our district when are presentations made by groups and clubs and they are recognized for their accomplishments. You can go back and watch the videos at anytime. Posting of Board Meeting Agendas and Supporting Documents Another big improvement that I asked our school board for many times was the posting of the agenda and the supporting board packet information on Fox’s website days ahead of school board meetings. This took years to implement as well. Fox eventually chose to use BoardDocs which works well in sharing access to documents like Bill Payments and other documents such as bids and proposals, etc. When I first started asking for Bill Payment Reports, I was charged to get copies of the reports because they weren’t on the website. Sunshine Law allows for fees to be charged to provide the documents. Charging for documents is another easy way to hide things from the public. I wished I had paid the $180 for a copy of the Credit Card statements in February 2014 after I started asking our school board if they had been reviewing the credit card statements. The credit card statements weren’t included in the board packets. Read the article I wrote about speaking at the January 15, 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting to see how school board meetings were documented back then. It wasn’t the first time I spoke at a Fox C-6 school board meeting. My first time speaking at a board meeting was December 2010. There were only 7 people in attendance at that school board meeting and Kim Robertson was one of them in attendance. She wrote an article about my questioning the board about the hiring of Jamie Critchlow even though I didn't mention any names during my Public Comments. When I spoke at the January 2013 school board meeting I asked our school board again about recording board meetings and making those recordings available to the public. I also told our school board that I believe that there are people in our school community (aka administrators) who are posting defamatory comments online about me after school board meetings. The online comments after school board meetings began right after the December 2010 school board meeting. Bringing change to your school district is sometimes met with a lot of resistance. Even law firms like to get into the fray of stopping parents from speaking up. The Public Comment I made at the January 2013 Fox C-6 school board meeting were documented board meeting minutes the following month as: PUBLIC COMMENTS: Rich Simpson - Requested more board information on the district website.
Once you read the public comment I made at the January 2013 school board meeting, it’s pretty easy to see why the board meeting minutes of my comment provide very little detail. That’s why having audio or video recordings of school board meetings provides a lot more transparency than the board meeting minutes like the one above from 2013. It’s no wonder why it took so long for the public to learn about what was going in our school district and oust our former superintendent. Audio or video recording BOE meetings is essential to having an accurate record of what the public's concerns are and what was really discussed or stated at the meeting and not just what our superintendent wanted the community or the public to know.