It only took a year, but after repeatedly raising the issue, most recently at the July 27 school board meeting, the New Rochelle school district will finally begin to publish school board resolutions on the school district web site prior to school board meetings, sources say. The publishing of board resolutions to the web is expected to begin in September.
This a major victory for Talk of the Sound and the people of New Rochelle who can now decide beforehand whether or not they wish to attend a school board meeting based on what resolutions will be voted upon at that board meeting. Still missing is any plan to allow the public to comment on board resolutions before they are voted upon rather than after as has been the case for many years.
Still, this news is a welcome change and one we celebrate. Having been critical of the school board for not publishing the resolutions it is only fair we now commend them for taking this long overdue step.
We can only hope that this change reflects recent changes in the leadership of the school board and an end, or at least the beginning of the end, to the sort of neanderthal foot-dragging engaged in by the anti-transparency, secret-government crowd led by Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak, Finance Chief John Quinn and some of the near-fossilized members of the school board who have grown accustomed to running the school board as if it were their own little private club.
For those who have not been paying attention, I have repeatedly challenged the board to publish the resolutions on their web site along the lines of my presentation to the school board in July:
I raised the issue of putting School Board Resolutions online and doing so before the meeting where they are to be voted upon. I pointed out that last fall Christine Coleman has spent an hour talking to the board about her pet “green technology initiatives”, that Mr. Hastie had talked throughout his campaign about a professed desire for openness and more transparency, that Mrs. Reddington had bemoaned the fact that turnout for school board elections was so low, and that many board members had expressed, from time to time, their supposed desire for more involvement from the community. I then asked if this was really the case why the district was still not publishing the Board Resolutions on their District web site prior to the board meetings. I pointed out that the district already owns the software necessary to convert Microsoft Word documents to Adobe PDF documents and they already have a web site so there is no good reason that the district is not publishing the board agenda and board resolutions to the district website in PDF format at the same time that was printing out hardcopies for physical distribution to board members.
Next up on our transparency crusade:
1. Recording all school board meetings and committee meetings using a digital audio recorder and publishing the audio as mp3 files onto the district web site.
2. Broadcasting or web streaming all school board meetings and committee meetings as the City Council has been doing for 10 years.
3. Ending the practice of holding secret meetings to discuss topics that are required to be discussed in public session in violation of the states Open Meeting laws.
4. Complying with New York State’s Freedom of Information laws.
