Some candidates running for a seat on the Jefferson City Public Schools Board of Education have expressed a desire to increase transparency of the board's activities, specifically by suggesting board meetings be live streamed or broadcast publicly.
Viability of proposals like these and interest in them by board members has been a point of contention for at least a year.
Last March, the board voted 5-2 to scrap a proposal to live stream its meetings. Opponents' concerns included the cost of the proposal and possible Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) violations. FERPA protects student and personnel records, and even an accidental release of this private information by the board could spur lawsuits.
Amy Berendzen, JCPS director of community relations, reported to the board at the time that it would cost $2,000-$3,000 to install a camera in the board room. Berendzen said that number came from the Cole County Commission, which live streams its meetings.
At the time, board President John Ruth said microphone wiring in the room would have to be redone to record audio, and this and other necessary audiovisual equipment improvements would drive the setup cost for live-streaming capabilities up to $45,000.
Current board Vice President Steve Bruce said the proposal became a "non-starter" for him at the time.
Bruce said last year's proposal had too many undefined cost ambiguities in it: How much data storage would be required to keep an archive of recorded meetings; whether the recording system would be used for other district activities; and whether equipment would be mobile or stationary in the board room. He said there weren't answers to those questions at the time, and there were other pressing costs.
Board members Pam Murray and original proponent Michael Couty voted in dissent in the 5-2 decision.
Murray said once she had been voted onto the board, it took them 11 months to get the issue of live streaming on the agenda. She has no reason to think the vote balance on the subject has changed.
"Depending on the outcome of the (April 4) election, if people win that are supportive of streaming, then yes, I'd like to see that on the agenda as soon as possible," Murray said. She added she thinks the votes remain stacked against a favorable outcome, and if the new board members do not support streaming, "I'd be reluctant to bring it up."
"When you want to do something, you can find a way to do it," she said, noting streaming solutions could be as simple and low-cost as a community member recording on a cellphone.
That would not address the FERPA issue. Former board member Dennis Nickelson said last March, "Even if it's the exception, we don't want it to happen."
The Missouri School Boards Association (MSBA) reported at the time 95 percent of the 518 public districts in the state didn't stream their meetings.
The Jefferson City Council and Cole County Commission both live stream their meetings and archive them on YouTube - the Council through JCTV, which also broadcasts meetings on public access television.
Viewership online for either set of public meetings is consistently low. As an example, the January City Council meeting had only 14 views in the month after it was posted on YouTube.
In the past, the school board has tentatively explored the possibility of having Jefferson City High School journalism students record meetings as hands-on experience, Bruce said, but he doesn't recall sustained interest in the idea. Murray said she likes the idea or would explore having University of Missouri journalism students perform the same function.
As another mode of electronic transparency, Murray posts regularly to her personal blog about school board information. At least one board candidate has talked about creating a similar arrangement if they won in April.
"I get between 4,000 and 5,000 hits a year," Murray said of visitors to her blog. Feedback she receives has been "95 percent or higher supportive," she added, much of it simply about "having some information out there."
However, all forms of electronic information-sharing have at least one major drawback: Many people in the community still do not have internet access.
The Missouri Census Data Center's 2015 community profile reported 55,448 households in the Jefferson City Metro Area. Of those, 15.8 percent don't have a computer. That's 8,786 households without access to a computer at home.
Within the households that do have a computer, 14.5 percent don't have an internet subscription.
This means aside from possible mobile access, 28 percent of households in the Jefferson City area don't have at-home access to information the school district or board might provide online.
Bruce said he's not aware of any policy that would prevent members of the public from recording open board meetings on their phones.
The Missouri Census Data Center also notes Jefferson City is one of several cities in Missouri with a significantly lower percentage of households that have access to high-speed internet than the national average. The national average is 78.1 percent, the state average is 75.6 percent and Jefferson City's average is less than 73 percent.
The board should "get away from the model of having meetings and expecting folks to come to us," Bruce said. "That doesn't work any longer in the society that we live in."
He advocated a policy of "go to where they are." That doesn't necessarily mean holding board meetings at sites like the Capital Mall Community Room or other gathering places; to him, it means more in-person outreach and communication or, as another example, having board members write regular columns.
Public forums scheduled for school board, Council candidates
The News Tribune will host two public forums at City Hall, 320 E. McCarty St., prior to the April 4 election.
Tuesday (March 7), the forum will be devoted to school board races and the bond and levy issues facing voters in the Jefferson City School District. The first hour of the forum will be devoted to the school board races; the bond and levy issues will be discussed in the second hour of the forum.
On March 21, the forum will focus on City Council races on the April 4 ballot.
Both forums begin at 6 p.m. in the Council chambers. Reader questions will be incorporated into the forum, and the event will be live streamed on newstribune.com and aired on JCTV.
You can add your voice to the News Tribune election coverage by submitting questions via email to [email protected] or on Twitter with #MoVotes, and we'll follow up by publishing the candidates' responses.