NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Video livestreams of board meetings, which became common practice during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, may be cut back at New Hanover County Schools.
School board vice chair Pat Bradford and members Josie Barnhart and Stephanie Walker, as well as Superintendent Charles Foust, discussed whether the district should livestream meetings that were for planning purposes, rather than action items. The members make up the legislative committee, which met Nov. 9 to put together the details of a December networking event with local officials and neighboring school districts.
At the beginning of the meeting, Foust said he had moved the meeting to the district’s administrative building because another event was occurring in the Board of Education Center, where board and committee meetings are typically held. The move required the reassignment of NHCS’s video crew to livestream the legislative committee’s gathering.
“As the superintendent, I’ll be honest, I’m a little frustrated that we had to take them to come here, drive here, when we are just putting an agenda together,” Foust said to the committee.
Because the discussion on livestreaming was not part of Wednesday’s agenda, the board had to vote to add it; everyone did. When the conversation turned back to the topic at the end of the meeting, Foust focused on policy.
He said it was not a requirement to livestream meetings, but it has persisted since almost everything went virtual during 2020 Covid-19 shutdowns. Not every district meeting is streamed — only board or committee meetings where enough board members are present to meet quorum, or a sufficient number of members to conduct business. For the entire board, that threshold is four, though it’s only two for committee meetings.
When official business is to be conducted, state statute requires written notice be disseminated to the public at least 48 hours before the date. The meetings must also be open to the public, exceptions made for certain items under closed sessions.
Foust reminded board members an employee has to monitor the stream throughout the entirety of the meeting. However, he made clear he was only questioning streaming when meetings were for planning purposes and were held at the administrative building, where streaming technology has to be set up each time.
“So my question is: Is it a good use of resources for them to come in, set up a livestream?” Foust asked the committee.
Bradford suggested it might not be, drawing on her “conservative” value of fiscal responsibility.
“Every time we put that meeting through the livestream with the audio, security — that’s dollars and cents expensed to the school district,” Bradford said. “And we mind so many other little dollars and cents so heavily, but nobody seems to really appreciate the fact that we’re spending our talent and our people and our treasure to do something that is just satisfying a handful of people who basically just don’t trust us to have a meeting and not be doing something nefarious. It’s ridiculous to be honest.”
Walker pushed back, stating it was not about trust, but rather the community’s expectation of streaming access and the board’s responsibility as a public body. But Bradford held firm.
“You’re saying every planning meeting that every committee has needs to be livestreamed because we have to be that transparent?” Bradford asked. “I disagree.”
Walker pointed out changing the norm would probably solicit public pushback, noting she’s received many inquiries from people looking for meeting information.
Barnhart noted minutes are available; although, minutes have to be approved at the following meeting for release, meaning the information is often a month old before available to the public.
The meetings would also still be open to the public, though any meeting in the administrative building has a seating capacity of 10. Board meetings garner crowds by the dozens, though committee meetings typically draw in just a small group.
Even if there is room for admittance, some people still would not be able to attend meetings due to their schedule, but prefer to watch later via recording, Walker pointed out.
Barnhart said she would absolutely advocate streaming any meeting where legislative content was being discussed, but she did not see the need for Wednesday’s meeting to be virtually available to the public.
“All of us are on this committee; we can recap what was going on to anybody,” Barnhart said. “Nothing that we do as a committee can be taken and run with; it has to go before the board to be approved.”
No final decision was made on the topic. Barnhart, the committee chair, did not respond by press when asked how meetings would be streamed in the future.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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