There’s no good reason for Olathe Public Schools to quit livestreaming board meetings
With all the challenges COVID-19 presented for school districts, there also were lessons learned and good practices adopted, such as livestreaming district board meetings and comments from the public. So Olathe Public Schools should not be trying to roll back this transparency measure now.
Thursday night’s Olathe school board meeting turned into a shouting match among members debating a proposed plan to end its pandemic-era practice of livestreaming meetings, something that a great many public boards now find to be a good way to keep the public informed about how their elected officials are conducting business.
Two new board members who campaigned on the need for more district transparency and against mask mandates were the only voices on the board in support of not only continuing the livestream practice, but also including public comments in those meetings.
District leaders gave no good reason for wanting to end the streams. Superintendent Brent Yeager said during Thursday’s meeting that recordings, rather than livestreaming, would make it possible to edit out music in case of a copyright violation or to cut threatening comments. But Yeager also said he doesn’t expect to edit videos.
In April, the district cut the public comments segment from their regular meetings. They now hold the public comment meetings at a separate time — 5 p.m., convenient for district employees but not for members of the working public. And those meetings are neither livestreamed nor recorded. So those not able to attend don’t get to hear public concerns or praises.
The public should have every opportunity to address the school board members they elected to represent them and make decisions that are best for their children. By the same token, parents who disagree with board decisions should not be allowed to make vicious verbal attacks against board members.
But no longer livestreaming the in-person public comments is not the right answer to that problem. Isn’t that what a sergeant-at-arms and security are for?
Other board members suggest reverting back to the pre-pandemic practice of recording meetings then posting them online days later.
“THIS is not transparency by the BOE and does NOT serve ALL constituencies,” board member Brian Connell wrote last month in a Facebook post.
He’s right. Attempting to shut down the public, or making it more likely their complaints can be ignored, is precisely the kind of behavior Connell’s voters want him to stop.
Board members claim they made the call to stop livestreaming public comment because they were worried YouTube would pull their meetings because of inappropriate parent comments. That did happen to other districts when parents addressing the board spread misinformation during the pandemic. But that’s not happening at every meeting.
Now is not the time to halt transparency measures, because it does nothing to improve education for children or support district claims that it welcomes parent input. In fact, it does the opposite: It fuels some parents’ claims that public schools are hiding curriculum and keeping them out of classrooms.
Olathe should back off of this idea and continue livestream meetings that include public comment. And parents, with supporting board members, should keep insisting on it.