Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Rick Smith speaks during a school board meeting in this file photo.People should be able to show up at Hamilton County school board meetings and share their thoughts without having to ask officials for permission to speak three days ahead of time.
That’s one of four “transparency and accessibility” changes being called for by UnifiEd, a Chattanooga nonprofit group whose goal is to get people more involved in Hamilton County’s schools.
UnifiEd is also calling for school board meetings to be held across the county, instead of just at the central office on Hickory Valley Road, and demanding increased transparency.
The school board’s meeting agenda — along with the packet of information that school board members get — should be posted online at least seven days ahead of the meeting, UnifiEd says. Now, only the consent agenda is posted a day or two ahead of time and the compact disc of the board packet is only available by request. The school district’s budget should be online as well, in an easy-to-read format, UnifiEd says.
“I think it’s a no-brainer for public engagement,” UnifiEd’s Executive Director Elizabeth Crews said. “If you want to have a conversation with the public, the public needs to have all the information.”
If the agenda is only available a day or two before meetings, Crews said, it’s impossible to meet the three-day advance notice requirement to get approval to speak.
But Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Rick Smith has reservations about UnifiEd’s requests. For one, he says board members are already “incredibly accessible.”
“Our board members are engaged with the public,” Smith said.
Board members can be reached by phone and email, he said.
“I don’t necessarily agree that the meeting itself is the place for the public to come and line up,” Smith said. “I look at a board meeting as a business meeting.”
“Moving board meetings? We’ve done that before,” Smith said, noting that meetings held in East Ridge would be far from Sale Creek and vice versa. “Central office, if you look at a map of Hamilton County, is about as central as you can get.”
In regards to the budget, Smith is in favor of offering up a simplified version.
“What we’re talking about is trying to simplify that,” he said. “It’s a public document. If you ask for our budget, we’re going to give your our budget. [But] government accounting is not easy [to understand].”
Several school board members were hesitant about increasing public comment when the issue came up at the school board’s annual retreat on Nov. 1 at the request of board member Greg Martin, who represents Hixson.
Martin said then that he’d like people to be able to comment at the end of meetings.
Board member Rhonda Thurman, whose district includes Soddy-Daisy, didn’t agree.
“They should be able to say it before we vote, and not after we vote,” Thurman said then.
Board member Joe Galloway, whose district includes Lookout Valley, said at the retreat that board members already know what constituents think from emails and phone calls.
“The things we’re being told [at meetings] are things we already know,” Galloway said.
Board member David Testerman, a former Sale Creek High School principal who represents East Ridge, said public comments can get out of hand. He’s seen it happen in the past.
“It was out of control,” Testerman said at the retreat. “And when it was out of control, believe me, it was out of control.”
Crews thinks there are a variety of ways the district could address those concerns. For example, limiting comments to 3-5 minutes with two people from each side of an issue. If it’s hard for the district to move sound equipment used at meetings, maybe the school board could meet in the county commission’s meeting room, she said, which is accessible by public bus.
“There are lots of different ways to do it,” she said.
Crews plans to speak about UnifiED’s request at the school board’s meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.