Law Requires Public Comment at All School Board Meetings

Law Requires Public Comment
at All School Board Meetings—WEB EXTRA

Gov. Jon Corzine on Monday signed into law A-690, which requires school boards to have public comment at all meetings.

The act, which was passed unanimously by both houses of the Legislature, takes effect immediately.

Most school boards already have public participation at each meeting, and those boards are not affected.

Some boards provide for public comment at their regular monthly business meetings, but do not have structured public comment sessions at their “workshop,” or non-voting, meetings that often take place in preparation of the regular business meeting. The Open Public Meetings Act does not differentiate between “workshop” and “business” meetings, as any gathering of a quorum of the board to discuss board business is considered a public meeting. A-690 now requires all board meetings—even if the board designates it a “workshop” meeting—to allow public participation. The law does not affect school board committees that are not a quorum of the board.

Many boards take their Policy No. 9322 on meetings directly from NJSBA’s Critical Policy Reference Manual (CPRM). The CPRM Policy 9322 already provides for some public participation at each school board meeting. Therefore, boards using CPRM Policy 9322 are not affected by the change in A-690.

NJSBA strongly urges school boards to develop policy on public comment. NJSBA also can provide school boards with sample policies on the issue. For instance, some boards’ policies may limit the amount of time devoted to public participation to a certain amount of time, such as 15 or 20 minutes (extendable by the chairperson), with each speaker limited to a specific time, such as three minutes (extendable to five minutes by the chairperson). Members of the public may be required to limit their comments to school district issues, consistent with A-690.

For policy information, contact David Bosted, NJSBA policy consultant, at (888) 886-5722, ext. 5267, or by e-mail.

A 2002 state law required municipal governing bodies to have public comment periods at their meetings, but school boards were not affected until now.

The changes to the law (Section 7 of P.L.1975, c.231 (C.10:4-12)), are below, with the portion added by A-690 underlined. The law states that, other than the nine exemptions to the Open Public Meetings Act when closed-session discussion is allowed,

“all meetings of public bodies shall be open to the public at all times. Nothing in this act shall be construed to limit the discretion of a public body to permit, prohibit or regulate the active participation of the public at any meeting, except that a municipal governing body and a board of education shall be required to set aside a portion of every meeting of the municipal governing body or board of education, the length of the portion to be determined by the municipal governing body or board of education, for public comment on any governmental or school district issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the municipality or school district.

The primary sponsors of the bill were Assemblywomen Grace L. Spencer, Newark, and Caridad Rodriguez of West New York.