Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. is expanding its use of an online platform where documents related to school board meeting agenda items are to be posted in advance of meetings.
BCSC has used BoardDocs to house school corporation policies for quite some time but are now expanding that use to include all board activities, Director of Technology Innovation Nick Williams said during the school board meeting Monday.
Meeting agendas, related documents, school board member information, policies and meeting minutes are all included on the site.
It can be found starting on BCSC’s website by hovering over the “District Information” tab, selecting “School Board,” and then clicking on “BCSC District School Board Agendas, Policies, and Minutes Available Here.”
BoardDocs also has custom security access so some documents viewable by board members and BCSC cabinet will not be available to the public.
Meeting agendas and related information will be posted on Thursday nights before school board meetings, “but the goal is to have it up there, at least by the morning, if not earlier,” Williams said.
Agenda items and related documents were posted in advance on Monday’s meeting last Wednesday.
“We’re going to work on a cycle and we won’t be any later than we were before on Thursday afternoons with the information going out to the public,” BCSC Superintendent Chad Phillips said. “But we’re going to work on making that as early as possible and getting a good flow of when people can expect to have those materials publicly available.”
Phillips added that some of the minutes and agendas from the most recent school board meetings will be posted as well “so you don’t have to go two different places.”
District 6 Board Member Logan Schulz has continually advocated for more public access to agenda documents, including in May when he voted against the approval of a contract with Taylor Bros. and Pepper Construction to work as construction manager as constructors (CMc) on the new westside elementary school for that reason.
“I could not vote yes on a $65M contract with over 100 pages of legal language, where we are asking for public input but have failed to post these contracts online for feedback,” Schulz said in a text message following a May 13 school board meeting. “Taxpayers have the right to understand the specifics of how their money is being spent, especially if we want to ask for their public comment in good faith.”
