U City School Board Debates Change to Closed Session Votes

Members of the University City Board of Education discussed a proposal aimed at making its operations more transparent at a work session Thursday night.

The change would involve the way the board votes on matters during closed sessions. Closed sessions typically occur to discuss personnel matters, actions concerning individual students or legal issues, among other reasons. School boards are allowed to make decisions on these issues behind closed doors, but state law requires that any votes taken be made public after 72 hours.

Board Member Rick Salamon said he would like to increase the board’s transparency and openness by moving any votes that would normally take place in a closed session to an open one. Salamon said any discussions would remain closed, but the board would reconvene in open session briefly afterwards if a vote was needed.

“You can do all your items and all your discussion in closed session as we do, but then when it comes time to vote, you reconvene the meeting, have your votes and therefore the vote becomes a matter of record,” he said.

Salamon said the goal would be to make the board’s decisions more immediately available to the public and noted that he had seen it done that way in “dozens of school districts.”

“I see no purpose in keeping it closed,” he said. “I believe in being open and transparent in every possible case.”

The proposal drew some support from fellow board members, but also a few notes of caution as well.

Board President Stacy Clay said he would also like to increase the transparency of the board’s operations, but warned that it would require “extreme discipline” on the part of its members to ensure that no discussions spill over into the voting process.

“Let’s move to this, but let’s do so always being mindful of our exposure and our liability,” he said.

Board member Tom Peters also expressed support for the general idea. However, he balked at automatically treating all normally closed-session votes that way. In the case of hiring, for example, individuals may need that 72-hour window to inform their current employers.

“I am all for moving more toward open sessions, but to say that we are going to vote on all things in open session is a little over the top,” Peters said.

Since the votes eventually do become a matter of public record, Board Vice-President Linda Peoples questioned the necessity of the move in the first place, but Board Member John Clark said it’s all part of being accountable as an elected official.

“When someone’s fate is on the line, like an employee … the people should know that night,” he said. “I don’t believe we have the right to run away from our votes, and that is kind of what it does.”

Clark said as much as he would like to sneak out the back door following a contentious vote, “that’s what we are here for.”

Since the Thursday night meeting was a work session, no formal action was taken by the board. Clay said he will do further research on the issue with the district’s staff and the Missouri School Board Association and report back to the board at a future meeting.