What are the legal requirements for school board meeting minutes?
Imagine a bustling school district meeting on a fall evening. The room is filled with the school board members, each taking their seats around a long, polished table. The walls are adorned with plaques and certificates, a testament to the district's long-standing commitment to education.
The board secretary, a seasoned professional with a keen eye for detail, sits ready to capture the essence of the meeting in the minutes. The air is charged with a mix of anticipation and responsibility, as the board is about to discuss critical decisions that will shape the future of the district. As the meeting begins, the secretary meticulously records the date, time and attendees, setting the stage for a thorough and legally compliant record of the proceedings.
At every board meeting, the board secretary or other administrator is tasked with an action that might seem simply routine or even mundane. However, your school board’s reputation and legal standing hinge on this task: recording meeting minutes. School board meeting minutes serve as the official records of school board meetings and provide public access to the actions of the governmental body. In this article, you will learn:
- The key purposes of school board meeting minutes serve
- The various state laws that govern board meeting minutes
- The role of accessibility and transparency in compliance efforts
The legal requirements for school board meeting minutes are extensive and imperative. The minutes of school board meetings become historical records; therefore, they must serve as clear and precise accounts of board meetings. In litigation, courts have found meeting minutes to be conclusive evidence of what transpired at a meeting or what action was taken by the board.
State requirements for school board minutes
Regulations regarding meeting minutes are often part of the state’s open meeting laws. Some specify precisely what the minutes should contain. Others allow boards to decide the content of the minutes. It is critical that the school board, especially the recording secretary, is aware of any state and local legal requirements.
Here are examples of state laws for school board minutes:
- Florida law requires the district superintendent to keep minutes and records of the meeting, which “set forth clearly all actions and proceedings of the school board.” The minutes are public record must be stored in a permanent location. The contents must show the vote of each member present on all matters, and the board members are responsible to ensure their votes are properly recorded in the minutes.
- Ohio law doesn’t specify the content of board’s minutes. However, in a 1996 court case, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that minutes should allow individuals who did not attend the meeting would understand the board’s actions and the reasoning behind those actions.
- The Illinois Open Meetings Act requires that the minutes include the date, time, and place of the meeting, the members recorded as either present or absent and whether the members were physically present or present by means of video or audio conference; and a summary of the discussion on all matters proposed, deliberated or decided, and a record of any votes taken. The also requires only a summary and not a verbatim account, including only general comments, not quotations.
- Wisconsin’s open meetings law requires that all motions and roll call votes be recorded, preserved, and open to public inspection under the state Public Records Law. This applies to open and closed sessions of the meeting.
- Tennessee’s open meetings law states that “minutes of a meeting of any such governmental body shall be promptly and fully recorded, shall be open to public inspection, and shall include, but not be limited to, a record of persons present, all motions, proposals and resolutions offered, the results of any votes taken, and a record of individual votes in the event of roll call.”
Common meeting minutes format
For most school boards, meeting minutes may follow this format:
Date of the meeting.
Time the meeting was called to order.
- This is essential to record that a quorum was present, and the presiding board member has opened the meeting. Acknowledging that the quorum has been met and the meeting opened is crucial when aligning with legal requirements.
Names of the meeting participants and absentees.
Corrections and amendments to previous meeting minutes.
- The draft minutes from the previous meeting should be made accessible to all present parties for review and approval. This provides an opportunity to make any corrections to the minutes for the previous meeting. Distributing hard copies of the minutes and allowing for time to read them during the meeting can waste time. Using a board portal will allow for easy access to previous meeting minutes for review before the upcoming meeting.
Additions to the current agenda.
- This may vary by the district and/or state. Some policies or regulations do not allow for business to be added to an agenda at the board meeting.
Record any results of voting, and that a motion and a second was made.
- Board management software allows for votes to be tracked in real time through the software. Electronic voting options are also available.
Actions taken or actions that need to be taken.
Items that were held over or unfinished business.
- This may vary by state; in some states, every agenda item must be addressed and therefore cannot be any unfinished business from the board meeting.
New business.
- New business is typically only used for board members to bring up items to place on a future agenda. For most states, the public should always be made aware of new business items.
Open discussion or public participation.
Next meeting date and time.
Time of adjournment.
- The presiding officer can remind others of the next meeting or events, review any assigned tasks or business, and then adjourn the meeting.
Tips for school board meeting minutes
How the recording secretary describes the conversations and discussions during a school board meeting is as important as making sure that all of the materials and information from the meeting agenda is included. Meeting minutes will give the local community and others a view of the board’s goals, plan and the work already being done.
State laws govern the specificity of meeting minutes. In general, minutes do not need to be verbatim recordings, but they should be thorough and precise to fulfill board meeting minutes legal requirements.
Chandu Vemuri, Executive Assistant for Board and Superintendent Leadership, Sun Prairie Area School District, Wisconsin, explains, “We have been told by our counsel that our minutes should only reflect the motions/actions taken at a meeting, who made the motion, who seconded and how the vote went. Was it just a voice vote or was it a roll call and then to reflect if it was roll call, who voted yes or not. I never summarize public comments or board member discussions so that I am not putting my take on anything they said. That is the reason we livestream and record our meetings but I know other states may have different requirements.”
For each agenda item, write a brief, concise statement for each action that is taken by the board, with a short explanation that provides the rationale for the school board’s decision. Each board member’s vote should be recorded.
If there are any lengthy or thorough discussions, write a brief summary of the major arguments or points. Note that some states don’t require notes of discussions if the board did not vote on the issue.
For legal requirements to be met, it is imperative that minutes serve as unbiased, objective records of the meeting. Conversations or arguments that occur at the school board meeting should be recorded objectively. The recording secretary should avoid any remarks or personal observations that could be seen as subjective or prejudice.
It should be habit and routine to review the school board meeting minutes to check language to be sure that it is clear and complete. Leveraging the right school board management software, your school board meeting minutes can be easily tracked and adjusted as needed.
Meeting minutes made easy
Our free downloadable checklist helps public education board administrators ensure that every meeting’s minutes are concise, clear and compliant with all necessary regulations.
I'd like that checklistComplying with legal requirements for accessibility and transparency
Knowing how to write minutes of a meeting is a vital skill for school boards. Another important issue related to meeting minutes is the accessibility of past school board meeting minutes.
Access is not just imperative to informing the public and maintaining transparency. Meeting minutes are also a part of the official public record. Just as meetings are required to be made public (check your state’s Sunshine Laws for details regarding these requirements), meeting minutes must be made available for public review. Some laws require boards to maintain a permanent place to store past minutes.
Board management software, like Diligent Community, helps school boards comply with meeting minutes legal requirements regarding accessibility. With the right technology that offers a centralized platform for information, individuals can view the meeting minutes and any documents related to the meeting.
The board can also set up customized access settings for the minutes and related materials, so the public view of the meeting minutes may be different than the view for school board members or administrators.
School board meetings might have additional materials distributed to board members or attendees. Additional documents and materials are a part of the minutes according to some states’ board meeting minutes legal requirements. These documents can be attached to the school board meeting agenda and minutes, then these materials can be searchable through the Diligent Community software.
For some states, video or audio recordings are a part of the legal requirements for board meeting minutes. If the board records meetings through video or audio, the footage of meetings can also be attached to minutes. All these documents and files can be easily distributed to board members and other pertinent parties.
How Diligent Community can help with your compliance
Knowing and understanding your school board meeting minutes legal requirements can be an extensive undertaking. However, it is vital to be abreast of these regulations to maintain accurate records for the district and transparency with the public.
Many boards find that leveraging a tool, like cloud-based software from Diligent Community, makes recording and having access to school board meeting minutes easy and efficient, ultimately improving the performance of the school board. Recording the school board meeting minutes and managing and maintaining those minutes is a serious task, but using the right tool can make it easier to achieve. When you use Livestream Manager for Diligent Community for streaming your public meetings, the AI-Supported Minutes feature will quickly and accurately capture key points aligned with the time-stamped video.
Find out how Diligent Community can help your board with meeting minute requirements.
