The Jefferson City School District Board of Education will soon start livestreaming the open forum portion of board meetings.
The policy review committee agreed Thursday to create a document with a plan for streaming the full meeting using technology that would protect student information. The board agreed Monday to get this technology and begin livestreaming the open forums once the district has it.
In 2016, the board rejected a proposal to begin streaming board meetings due to concerns about privacy during the open forum section and concerns about the cost of audio and video equipment. Livestreaming on YouTube was later adopted in 2017.
The district had not included the public forum portion of board meetings in its livestreams because previous boards excluded it to protect student information that could be discussed, communications director Ryan Burns has said.
The board decided in August to refer the livestreaming open forum issue to the policy review committee after board member Brad Bates brought it up and noted the board has been called anti-transparent for not streaming the full meeting.
Bates said he had spoken with a Missouri School Boards' Association policy attorney who said she wasn't aware of any other districts that exclude the public forum section from the livestream.
Once the district has the equipment and the staff is trained on how to use it, the district will record the full meetings using a piece of equipment that allows for about a 30- second delay in the stream. The operator can hit a mute or beep button if there is profanity or if a comment strays into a violation of student or staff privacy. The equipment will cost about $3,000, Interim Chief of Operations Dawn Berhorst said.
Berhorst said it's possible the streaming equipment could be ready to go as soon as January, but February is more plausible.
In other business Monday, Deputy Superintendent Bryan McGraw presented a draft of the 2022-23 school calendar, and a Cooperative Strategies representative gave an update on boundary lines. New options for boundary line scenarios can be found at coopstratprojects.com/jcschools.