Most of you who know me, and some who don’t, know that I’ve advocated for five years that our school board packets be made available online. City Council has done so for some time now, and it’s not that hard to do. There is some redacted information (unapproved board minutes are one example), but now the public can see the same information that Board members have prior to each meeting.
Starting now, it’s there.
I have long believed that we would have more support and confidence from the public, if everyone could see the same information that we have when making decisions. Without question, it will spur additional questions and input, but that’s a good thing. If five minds are better than one, perhaps 27,000 are better than five.
I certainly do not expect that everyone in town is going to put the same time into understanding school governance that the five of us do, but it is your school system, and you have every right to be informed. That, and I do believe that if the public were more informed, we would also find them more supportive of our efforts.
Happy reading!
Hear, hear! Democracy in action! 🙂
It brings to mind Benjamin Franklin’s reply, when asked at the end of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 what we had: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Congrats!! One more goal reached.
“If five minds are better than one, perhaps 27,000 are better than five.”
Yep. As a respected friend of mine once told me, “None of us is as smart as all of us.”
The budget is on line as are the budget concepts, etc. Hopefully, we will also get a high level of interest and participation in the upcoming budget deliberations.
Thanks to you both and all. Is there a schedule somewhere on line for the budget meetings?
BTW – what is a DLR Presentation?
DLR is the architect for the high school project. They give regular reports on the status, things that may need to change from the original plans, etc.
The budget timeline links from the main page (www.ortn.edu) on the right side — about the fourth one down.
This will greatly benefit every citizen who ever attends school board meetings (and many more who don’t attend).
It’s interesting that the schools are withholding unapproved draft minutes from this online distribution. The City Council’s unapproved draft minutes are included in the agenda packets that are distributed online (not to mention that the unapproved minutes are published in the legal notices section of the newspaper shortly after each meeting).
Good points Ellen.