Imagine having children go to a school and hear rumors about certain issues like budget cuts or teacher contracts. You try to ask a school board member who would be responsible for making those decisions and it seems pointless. They can’t say a word about it unless they first get permission.
Reading the first few paragraphs of Keeping the school board zipped up, the first red flag noticed is a violation of the first amendment. If the board members are unable to tell the public what is happening within the school, then to me it would seem like there is some sketchy behavior behind it all. The president of the school board is the only one to answer questions without asking the rest of the board, but even then, he’s allowed to withhold any information he wants.
Whenever board members do end up answering question before they got approval to do so, it attracts media coverage and the public because they’re not used to actually getting answers. In the end the board is in charge of taking away member’s ability to speak to the public about what is being discussed in meetings. Some questions asked in the editorial are, “When you ran for office, did you really intend to agree to have your opinion subverted in order to placate the community’s most outspoken citizen.” My questions are, why is it necessary to keep everything quiet about what happens in the school board meetings? What exactly is going on in these meetings that the public can’t know about?
There is no reason that these board members shouldn’t be allowed to talk about what happens in meetings. They’re getting the first amendment rights taken away from them even though there’s no clear rules saying they aren’t allowed to discuss their board meetings. Leaving out the school board’s ability to have differing opinions and inability to discuss topics, leaves no room for any kind of debate. Debate is essential for democracy.
This seems to be a heated debate about board members not having their freedom of speech to talk about what’s happening during meetings, but if no one says much about it then there won’t be progress to allow the conversation. In the editorial, Use your rights…or lose them, the newspaper was asked if they could file a request that would get information that should be open to the public. Of course, the newspaper easily could’ve, but decided not to because if the public isn’t asking for these records then soon the records won’t be available to them.
The more people that request that information the more valuable government officials will see it as important to automatically release it to the public. They won’t want to work in secret because they know people will be watching them. We allow the government to operate in private because no one is making a huge deal over public information the government is trying to hide from us.
The best advice given in this editorial is not to just ask for documents yourself, but it gives simple steps to how to do it yourself. There isn’t a requirement for a journalism degree, a lawyer, or even a reason for wanting the documents, you just need to know the steps it takes to get these documents.
There are four easy steps to get access to records and documents you are after. The newspaper even gives their contact information for people who are needing help filling out any requests, but their main goal is to encourage people to seek out these documents themselves. They want to make it known that it’s not just newspapers who can ask for information, anyone can. If people don’t start exercising their rights, then soon we might have them taken away for good.
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