Roseville School Board Seeks to Increase Community Engagement

Editor's Note: The following news opinion piece was written and submitted by Kitty Gogins, chairwoman of the the Roseville School Board

The Roseville Area School Board has identified engaging the community as a main focus of its work for 2012. The board recently discussed ideas for expanding ways parents and other community members can share their ideas and work with the board to improve education for our students.

Ideas included hosting community forums, attending more local school and community events to connect with students, parents, staff, and community members, and many others. The board is working on a “plan of action” and is looking for ideas from the community. Please send your thoughts to schoolboard@isd623.org.

An important aspect of community engagement is transparent communication between the school board and the community. We currently meet the requirements of the Minnesota Open Meeting Law by having all meetings open to the public, posting when the meetings will occur on the district bulletin board, and having materials available at the meeting.

The District also goes beyond these requirements by posting agendas and materials online, televising regular board meetings, and videotaping study sessions where the board learns about topics in more depth. A videotape of any study session is available to the public by request.

The board is discussing a proposal to further build transparency. The main focus is to broaden TV coverage of board business by moving to two televised regular board meetings per month. This would replace current practice of one televised meeting where discussion is more focused and the board votes on action, and one public non-televised (just videotaped) study session where often the same topics are reviewed in more depth.

Other changes being looked at are: ending school board meetings by 10pm, posting board committee meeting dates online, and highlighting any special meetings and calendar changes on the district home webpage and on cable TV.

While this plan allows for more TV coverage, it is also important to ask if this expanded coverage will help the community to be more informed about the work of the board. Or does it only make it harder for citizens to follow the board since airtime is doubled, with more discussion televised and board action spread across two meetings. The board is seeking your input on this proposal to make sure our actions do in fact improve citizen access.

 The board plans to vote on this proposal on March 6. If you have any comments on this or other topics related to public schools, please email schoolboard@isd623.org or send regular mail to the District Center at 1251 County Road B-2 West, Roseville.