For a few months, the Dallastown Area School Board is going to look at putting recordings of its meetings online, and will pare down its written meeting minutes.
It's the second public body in the past month or so that has taken up the question or meeting recordings as public records. Last month, residents in North Codorus Township complained about the township's plan to destroy meeting tapes once the written minutes are approved; the residents said the tapes should be kept indefinitely so people could always have access to them.
Daily Record/Sunday News correspondent Joli Harrington reported from the Dallastown board's meeting last week that instead of issuing seven- or eight-page-long meeting minutes, the board will keep minutes to three pages or less, and the minutes will focus on the board's actions. And the board will explore putting the audio of meetings on the district's Web site.
Harrington's story continued:
It's the second public body in the past month or so that has taken up the question or meeting recordings as public records. Last month, residents in North Codorus Township complained about the township's plan to destroy meeting tapes once the written minutes are approved; the residents said the tapes should be kept indefinitely so people could always have access to them.
Daily Record/Sunday News correspondent Joli Harrington reported from the Dallastown board's meeting last week that instead of issuing seven- or eight-page-long meeting minutes, the board will keep minutes to three pages or less, and the minutes will focus on the board's actions. And the board will explore putting the audio of meetings on the district's Web site.
Harrington's story continued:
"Secretary Lisa Kirby has been recording meetings for her use in
preparing minutes. Kirby uses the recordings to supplement the
information that she types into her laptop during meetings.
The tapes are public record, and the board might want to establish a retention policy regarding the microcassettes, solicitor Jeffrey Rehmeyer II said. Legally, the minutes need not be in as much detail as they are now, because the minutes need to reflect only actions taken, he said.
Less detailed minutes are the recommendation of the Pennsylvania School Board Association and would allow the secretary to write the meeting minutes more quickly, Supt. Stewart Weinberg said. School board President Don Yoder Jr. said that the board prides itself with being open and transparent."
Couple of useful things to remember:
As Rehmeyer said, the tapes are public record. And public bodies are permitted to establish a schedule by which they can destroy records. The right-to-know law says agencies, officials and employees can't be held liable for getting rid of a record if they are complying with a written "public record retention and disposition schedule," as the law puts it.
The state's open records office has advised agencies to hold on to tapes in accordance with the agency's retention/destruction schedule, or if tapes aren't addressed in an agency's policy. And the open records office notes that an agency can't destroy a record that has been requested, even if it's scheduled to be destroyed under an existing policy.
The tapes are public record, and the board might want to establish a retention policy regarding the microcassettes, solicitor Jeffrey Rehmeyer II said. Legally, the minutes need not be in as much detail as they are now, because the minutes need to reflect only actions taken, he said.
Less detailed minutes are the recommendation of the Pennsylvania School Board Association and would allow the secretary to write the meeting minutes more quickly, Supt. Stewart Weinberg said. School board President Don Yoder Jr. said that the board prides itself with being open and transparent."
Couple of useful things to remember:
As Rehmeyer said, the tapes are public record. And public bodies are permitted to establish a schedule by which they can destroy records. The right-to-know law says agencies, officials and employees can't be held liable for getting rid of a record if they are complying with a written "public record retention and disposition schedule," as the law puts it.
The state's open records office has advised agencies to hold on to tapes in accordance with the agency's retention/destruction schedule, or if tapes aren't addressed in an agency's policy. And the open records office notes that an agency can't destroy a record that has been requested, even if it's scheduled to be destroyed under an existing policy.
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