Discussions during Monday’s school board meeting included clarification between Attorney Rachael Glasoe and Board Member John Wortman.

The Warren County school board is updating its open meetings law guidelines – though board members had questions about late additions to the board’s meeting agendas.

A large portion of Monday’s meeting included discussions on the first reading of the changes to the Warren County School District’s handling of public notice of meetings to comply with a recent state Supreme Court ruling.

In 2021, the Pennsylvania General Assembly amended the Sunshine Act to require government entities to make meeting agendas available to the public at least 24 hours in advance. The 2021 amendments also have exceptions to the 24-hour rule, including actions related to emergencies, minor matters that arise after the notice is published and do not involve contractual or financial obligations, and minor matters raised by a resident or taxpayer during the meeting.

The 2021 amendments further allow an agency to change its agenda during a meeting by a majority vote, provided the change is announced to those present before the vote. A November state Supreme Court ruling in Coleman v. Parkland School District ruled that the Parkland School District had appropriately used the last exception when it added a union contract that had been agreed upon by the school district and union to the agenda that night by majority vote and then approved the contract later in the same meeting.

Most of Monday’s discussion focused on Part 4, which deals with circumstances that would allow the school board to vote on something not listed on the agenda 24 hours before the meeting. Board member John Wortman asked if Part 4 needed to be part of the district’s policy while Gary Weber, district superintendent, asked board solicitor Rachael Glasoe what would happen if the board didn’t adopt Part 4 and then a board member wanted to add something to the agenda.

“It makes much more sense to have the district’s policy aligned with what the law is than to not have it aligned with what the law is; which just leaves you open to questions later on, regardless of whether there’s any legal liability,” Glasoe said.

Wortman challenged whether or not point 4 needed to be added to the policy. He asked for a detailed legal opinion or analysis to be provided prior to the next meeting, in regards to his two questions: “Does the Warren County School District need to adopt the 4th point in bold to this policy to keep the district in legal compliance of the Sunshine Act? And my second question is “Does the Warren County School District have the ability under the Sunshine Act to not include number 4 in its policy?”

Glasoe quickly responded with, “There is no legal authority out there that is going to put liability on the school district for not passing this. There is no legal authority that is going to prevent the school district from putting more restrictive policies in place than what the sunshine law allows.”

At the end, public comment from Bill Eaker pointed out how the state changed the Sunshine Law so, policy by state is what we have to go by.

“Listening to the discussion about 7.1 kind of disturbed me a little bit. To be able to put your solicitor on the spot, to try to put something into this before you got started, was really mismanagement of your time and all our time,” Eaker said.

In other business, The upcoming school calendar was up for approval with the addition of a day off for Veterans Day, which had been requested late last year. In addition board member Misty Moore asked for clarification as to when the school year begins on the calendar. Weber mentioned that with Labor Day falling differently each year, that is taken into account when figuring out when the school year should begin as well as PDE days and a mandatory amount of days. The district has started previous school years with two shorter weeks during the first two weeks of school, which administrators say has helped students adjust to a five-day week. Other things in consideration include testing date windows, contractual obligations. The proposed calendar was passed.

The meeting began with student achievements presented by James Evers, Director of the Warren County Career Center. The following clubs and names were recognized: the Distributive Education Club of America:

Hialeah Stanton; Future Business Leaders of America: Corey Bunce, Deirdre Nelson, Raegan Eckstrom, Alex Gulnac, Connor Mix, Nickolas Schaffer, Michael Haight, Beckett Nagle, Aubrey Carrington, Avery Dalrymple, and Matthew Smith. For the SkillsUSA: Kylie Madigan, Michael Lore and Meea Irwin.