In-Person Vs. Virtual Attendance At Bernards School Meetings Debated

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Bernards school board members debated whether to allow more flexibility on virtual attendance at school committee meetings.

Currently, the Bernards Township Board of Education has a policy that only allows a board member to use Zoom once a year to attend a meeting. The discussion was whether or not to expand that limitation.

"I think the idea was to allow more people who have other commitments to serve on the board or committees to have more flexibility. I am OK with allowing more remote participation without putting a limit on it," said Board Vice President Nimish Amin at the March 1 meeting.

Board President Keith Molinari was also in favor of removing the limit.

However, Board members Jennifer White, Timothy Salmon, and Robin McKeon were in favor of in-person attendance and voiced their concerns over having unlimited virtual appearances.

White noted that some of the committees require administrators, teachers, and staff to appear and it would be the same courtesy for the assigned board member to appear in person as well.

"I feel like if they are there we should be there as much as we possibly can. So I don’t think it should necessarily be unlimited," said White.

Salmon agreed with White's sentiments saying "It's my preference to be in person because there is conversation there and I think you lose that on Zoom."

"I personally feel in-person is better. Some of us lived through the Zoom committee meetings and board meetings and it's just not the same. You don't get the connection with people. I feel like there should be some limits on it. I don't think it would be good if people were doing it all the time. I don't think it would be as productive," said McKeon.

McKeon also noted that when there is a Zoom participant it can cause issues with glitches, audio problems, etc.

"We did get a lot of criticism during COVID when we were doing remote meetings from the community saying, 'Why are you not having in-person meetings?' And I kind of think it applies to this as well. We all know that the commitment, the time when we sign on to do this… I think the expectation, shouldn't be as flexible as possible to each individual committee, I think the expectation is we will be there as much as we can," said White.

Instead of no limitations, White, Salmon, and McKeon suggested changing the policy from one allowed Zoom appearance to possibly two or three.

While a final decision was not made, Superintendent Nick Markarian said he would draft up a policy to give the Board an idea on a new policy.

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