The St. Paul school board plans to adjust its meeting times to give the public more opportunity to address the board.
In recent years, the board has convened at 5:30 p.m. for up to 30 minutes of public comments before its formal monthly meetings.
About half the time, speakers — who are given three minutes or two, depending on how many sign up — use the entire 30 minutes. When they don’t, the board waits around until 6:05 before getting down to business.
Board member Uriah Ward wants to set aside up to 45 minutes for public comment but to start the meeting right away — as early as 5:30 or late as 6:15 — if everyone’s done speaking before that time is spent.
“If we had a large number of people who are coming to speak, (meetings) would be longer, but other scenarios where we have fewer people coming to speak, we would actually have shorter meetings,” he said.
Fellow board members generally like the plan, but they haven’t yet voted on a change. Still to be decided is whether to make public comments or celebratory staff and student recognitions the first item on the agenda.
During a discussion at Tuesday’s board meeting, chief of administration and operations Jackie Turner said the board adopted the break between public comments and the 6:05 board meetings so that people giving presentations during the formal meetings would know when to show up.
“We wanted to provide that certainty for the community,” she said.
Dana Abrams, a district administrator who facilitates public comment, said there was a time when there was no limit on public speakers, which “wasn’t good for anybody.” But the break before the 6:05 meeting also is “not a good use of anybody’s time,” she said.
The board is expected to vote on a change in procedure at its October meeting and put a new schedule in place for November.