By: Diane Benjamin
School Board meetings operate under 2 different statutes in the Illinois code. First they must comply with the Open Meetings Act which requires agendas be posted 48 hours in advance of meetings. OMA also requires time allotted at every meeting for Public Comment. Most units of government do not respond to people during Public Comment, the Board Chair usually states they don’t respond.
School Boards also have their own statutes separate and apart from the Open Meetings Act: shorturl.at/iqJ27
This gem is in the School Board code:
Parents: Your School Board is required by law to set aside time for QUESTIONS. If they are required to set aside time for QUESTIONS, that implies ANSWERS. The time referenced above is not Public Comment.
I suggest you not submit written questions since the law states they have 60 days to respond. If they want your questions in writing, tell them to write down what you asked. Answers to every question may not be provided immediately because they might have to research the answer. You are entitled to answers however!
Demand time to ask questions!
One more: The law says the president of the school board can only serve for 2 years:
How long have Amy Roser (Unit 5) and Mark Wylie (District 87) been Board President? The March 11, 2020 minutes show Roser was not the president then, but she was in June of 2020. (Some minutes aren’t on the website) It looks like Wylie took over in May of 2021.
It appears Roser is due for replacement soon, Wylie has some more time.
This same “right to ask questions” provision is in the code for universities and junior colleges too.
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Excellent. Thank you Diane!
If they are breaking the law then why has their attorney not stopped them?
The attorney is there to cover for them, not enforce the law
The only problem is that recently those who are pursuing extreme agenda like you have made those questions (or rants) totally untenable for board members. They show up at board member’s houses, they harass them while driving or at work. Your extreme politics condones that violent rhetoric. Terrorize reasonable people to quit or refuse to run for office in order to clear the way for their own candidates to dominate. Who was the racist candidate that was running that had to withdraw?
This is the atmosphere you ARE fostering.:
Washington Post November 9, 2021
“It was when the police car pulled away from her house, some time after midnight on a Thursday in late October, that Beth Barts hit her breaking point.
The school board member in Loudoun County, Va., had been fielding abusive, profane and threatening emails, Facebook messages and phone calls for eight months. She was also facing a recall campaign from mostly conservative parents irate over her support for pandemic safety measures, as well as her membership in a pro-equity parent group on Facebook. And she had been censured by other members of the school board in part for her outspokenness, which they said veered into rudeness, on social media.
AND:
“The ongoing harassment of school board members runs the gamut: In Illinois, a man was arrested for striking a school official at a September board meeting. In Hilton, N.Y., three people were arrested at a school board meeting last month — one for allegedly refusing to put on a mask, two for allegedly refusing to leave after the school board president suspended the meeting because of attendees’ unruly behavior.”
AND:
“They were standing outside the home of Shirley Brown, the 69-year-old chair of the Sarasota County Schools board. Midway through cooking dinner when the protesters arrived, Brown within minutes phoned the police for help. By that point, she had already received a slew of emails labeling her a tyrant and a child abuser for her support of mask-wearing in schools. A parent group had shared her home address and phone number online.”
Correction: Washington Compost is the correct term. Nice try though.
I forgot tonadd, thanks for confirming LAWS don’t matter. Of course we’ve known they only apply to the right, never the left.