Local education administrators are welcoming a new state law that sets forth a mandate for school boards and other agencies to livestream their meetings.
The law, set to take effect in July, is aimed at fostering openness in the processes such bodies follow in setting policies and making other decisions.
South Madison Community Schools started livestreaming its board meetings on the district’s YouTube channel more than a year ago. Board President John Lord said he and his colleagues felt it was important to start livestreaming the meetings.
“We knew there was talk about possibly making a law and we felt like we needed to be more transparent,” Lord said. “We wanted to give people an opportunity, who could not come to the board meetings, to see what was happening – the discussions, the decisions that have been made.”
Lord mentioned he watches other districts’ board meetings to see what is going on. He believes the livestreams are “a positive thing for schools to do.”
Lord said he likes that people can go back and review previous livestreams to remain engaged and informed.
Brad Meadows, the director of communications and public relations at Anderson Community Schools, runs the livestreams during his district’s board meetings. He said ACS began livestreaming its meetings in May 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With the pandemic, we were not able to have people attend those meetings in person,” Meadows said. “All of our board members and our superintendent were doing a Zoom meeting that was broadcast live.”
Meadows said ACS administrators see many benefits to livestreaming the meetings.
“It is something we kept doing,” he said. “We have the technology…it helps with transparency, it helps people to stay up to date with what is happening with Anderson Community Schools. If people are not located in Anderson but still want to keep up, they can still watch the meetings. Since it is on Facebook, they can go back and watch it any time they want to.”
This article appeared in The Herald Bulletin.