Oregon Senate passes bill requiring school board meetings to be recorded

Oregon Sentate Approves Recording School Board meetings

The Oregon Senate passed a bill on Wednesday  that requires public school boards to Video/Audio record meetings in an effort to increase it’s transparency and accessibility, Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner announced.

The Education Board Transparency Act, Senate Bill 1502, requires education boards of public school districts, community colleges, and universities to video record their meetings and upload them for public viewing online.

Digest: Requires most public schools and college boards to video record their meetings and post the meeting recordings on their websites and social media sites. This does not apply if a meeting is private or if a school district is very small. (Flesch Readability Score: 61.7). Digest: Requires public schools and college boards to live stream their meetings and post the meeting recordings on their websites and social media sites. This does not apply if a meeting is private. Allows remote testimony for most school and college board meetings. (Flesch Readability Score: 65.7).Ù Requires the governing bodies of school districts, education service districts, community college districts and public universities to live stream governing body meetings, if technically practicable, and to post the recordings of the meetings on their official public body websites or social media sites. Excepts executive sessions. Requires educational institution governing bodies to also permit witnesses to testify via telephonic, electronic or virtual means if meetings also permit in-person oral testimony.Ù Requires school districts, education service districts, community college districts and public universities to make video recordings of governing body meetings or, if the public body’s facilities lack broadband Internet access, to make audio recordings, and to post the video or audio recordings, as applicable, of the meetings on their official public body websites or social media sites. Excepts executive sessions and does not apply to school districts with less than 50 students.

Here is the Text of the Bill

This is actually a great idea, we just have to hold them accountable and make sure that they follow this new law and not cherry pick what they upload.

So keep an eye out and watch the videos and take action on anything that seems to be suspicious or actionable.

Here is the Vote Tally for the Bill

Useful Links with Information:

OR SB1502 Bill

Testimony Given For and Against

 

You might also like:

Leave a Reply