Conference call: Can school board members phone it in?

• What they do: Develop model policies for school boards to consider for implementation.

• New model policy regarding school board members participating in meetings remotely:

“Board members are not required to be physically present to attend a board meeting. Any or all board members may attend a board meeting and vote via any communication platform — including videoconference or teleconference — that provides, at a minimum, simultaneous aural communication between those present, provided:

1) the meeting is properly noticed with any required passwords or authorization codes;

2) the meeting is accessible to the public;

3) the meeting accommodates any member of the public who wishes to participate and

4) the communication platform is generally known and accessible to the public.”

With access to a profusion of electronic communications devices, many school boards have not yet formulated policy allowing board members to participate in meetings via a state-of-the-art device — that is, state-of-the-art in 1876 — the telephone.

Vancouver Public Schools board member Kathy Gillespie, who was out of town vacationing with her family, had requested to participate in the July 15 regular meeting via speakerphone. Her request was denied. However, Gillespie was permitted to participate in the executive session after the meeting.

“That’s been a common procedure in the years I’ve been on the board,” Gillespie said via phone. “Our practice was not to accommodate members via phone for a regular meeting but would allow it for the executive session. We include people on the phone. I’ve never seen it in a regular meeting, that’s true. But I don’t know if anyone has ever asked. It’s my understanding that it’s not legally allowed or disallowed.”

Mark Stoker, incoming president, said there is no policy allowing board members to participate in meetings or to cast votes via teleconference.

“The board’s bylaws do not address this as a permissive practice for regular meetings of the board,” Stoker wrote in an email.

Stoker said the board would need to revise board bylaw policy permitting the practice for regular meetings.

“On occasion, when an executive-session topic requires the input from an absent board member, an accommodation has been made to allow a teleconference,” Stoker said. “In none of those occasions has any action been taken by the board.”

Setting board policy

“There’s no language in the OPMA (Open Public Meetings Act) explicitly allowing or disallowing participation by telephone,” said Toby Nixon, president, Washington Coalition for Open Government. “Different agencies have interpreted it different ways; some allow telephonic participation, and some do not.”

The Washington State School Directors’ Association develops model policies for school boards to consider for implementation, said Michael Wilson, WSSDA spokesman. During the year, districts review and modify their policy. Districts have local control to determine whether they will implement model policies. Districts also determine whether they will use WSSDA language, modify the language or use own language.

“We amended our regular meeting policy about a year ago to include language that physical presence is not required,” Wilson said. “It has become more and more common. Our board periodically meets that way.”

The WSSDA model policy is so new that some school boards haven’t read it yet.

“Typically, we review WSSDA policies in the fall in our policy committee,” Stoker said. “If we decide to pursue this, it would become part of a work session by the full board. Typically, policies go to two different readings before we vote on them.”

Battle Ground Public Schools does not have policy that either condones or supports board members to participate in meetings via teleconference; but on occasion, board members have been allowed to do so, said Monty Anderson, board president.

“In my five years on the board, it’s happened maybe five times,” he said. “We discourage it. The public expects board members to be at the meeting. Accessible.”

He said board members also have been allowed to cast a vote via teleconference on occasion.

Anderson also had not read the WSSDA model policy yet.

At its August meeting, the Evergreen Public Schools board of directors will have a first reading and discuss the policy of allowing board members participate in meetings via conference call, said Gail Spolar, district spokeswoman.

“The board is in the process of reviewing all of the board policies and using the corresponding model WSSDA policies as starting points,” Spolar said. “The group of policies to be discussed at the August board meeting will include this specific model policy, but it is not scheduled to be adopted at the meeting.”

Rotation changed

During the July 15 Vancouver school board meeting, the board selected the officers for the 2014-2015 school year.

The vacationing Gillespie was not permitted to vote. She said she had hoped to cast her vote for Edri Geiger, outgoing vice president, as incoming president. Gillespie said what typically transpires is that the current vice president rotates into the presidential role the following school year.

Dale Rice, outgoing board president, had appointed Stoker and Mari Greves to the nominating committee. They recommended Stoker as president and recommended that Geiger hold the vice presidential role another year, rather than becoming president.

Rice, Stoker and Greves voted for Stoker as president. Geiger voted against Stoker. Before the vote was cast, she read a statement from Gillespie.

“This denial violates any minimal expectation of respect for an elected official’s request to fulfill her duties to constituents and the office of director,” Gillespie wrote.

“I am opposed to the nominating committee’s recommendation and will vote ‘no.’ There is absolutely no justifiable reason to skip the rotation. … I am asking you to respect the rotation, the ideals of collaborative leadership and your colleague who works very hard every day to serve the students of this district. She (Geiger) deserves better than to be skipped over for no legitimate reason other than the fact that she may not always agree with the ‘majority’ view,” Gillespie wrote.

Incoming president Stoker said, “There is no formal policy for the rotation of board officers. A nominating committee is appointed by the board chair each year to nominate whom the committee believes will be the best officers to lead the board in the ensuing year.”

Geiger did not want to comment.