Board introduces revisions to committee and public-participation policies for future consideration

The St. John the Baptist Parish School Board on Feb. 13 introduced two policy revisions for future consideration: a revised BBC policy governing board committees and a revised BCBI policy covering public participation at meetings.

The BBC draft clarifies committee procedures, including that committee chairs set meeting dates and times in consultation with the superintendent and board president, that items cannot be added to a committee agenda except by unanimous approval of members present, and that committee meetings are subject to the same advertisement and open-meeting statutes as regular board meetings. The draft enumerates committee compositions and duties for standing committees including Executive, Finance, Personnel, Curriculum, Discipline, Insurance, Calendar, Land & Facilities and Strategic Planning.

The introduced BCBI draft defines public-comment procedures: the board requests that speakers submit comment cards, limits individual comments to three minutes, restricts comments to agenda items and disallows defamatory or accusatory remarks about individual employees. The draft also authorizes the board president to limit or organize speakers to ensure order and to cap collective public comment on a single agenda item at 30 minutes unless extended by the chair.

Both items were introduced for later consideration; the board did not take final action on either policy at the meeting. The statutes cited in the draft policies include Louisiana Revised Statutes referenced in the record.