School district considers televising meetings

In response to a call for greater transparency in the Laguna Beach Unified School District, trustees directed staff Tuesday to examine the cost of televising its meetings.

The focus in the last two years by some community members to make school board meetings more accessible to residents became a hallmark of board member Dee Perry’s recent election campaign and prompted trustees to give the go-ahead to look into the price of cameras and software so the public could watch meetings live or recorded.

Perry said she has researched the various ways other school districts make meetings accessible.

“I see it as a teaching tool,” Perry said. “When I taught third grade, I used old tapes of City Council meetings. It was great to show part of the meeting to students.

“It can be a great way to let parents and students, even other teachers, know what’s going on.”

The public can access audio recordings on the district’s website, but parents have said the feed can be choppy.

Trustee William Landsiedel is worried about the cost and the possibility that meetings could run longer if recording equipment runs into technical problems.

“I believe it would change the tenor of meetings,” Landsiedel said. “There would be no way to rein in the camera crew and there will be inevitable delays, slowdowns and goof-ups. How many people would actually watch it?”

Resident Howard Hills called the City Council’s recording system “perfect” for providing the opportunity to watch meetings live while at home.

“Transparency is what matters,” Hills said. “How this works is not about how many people watch it. It’s access to it for the people who do want to watch it.

“The most important thing is it creates a record that is accessible. I can go back four or five years and retrieve information. You inform people and empower people to participate.”

District staff will create a survey to gauge the interest of parents and students in watching video recordings of the meetings.