Committee sends proposal to restore broader public comment at school board meetings to amendment process

BOISE — The Senate Education Committee on Tuesday referred Senate Bill 1007 to the fourteenth order for possible amendment after a lengthy hearing that included parents, trustees and the Idaho School Boards Association.

Sponsor Senator Cindy Carlson (R-District 7) described SB 1007 as a cleanup bill that would remove a sentence added last year limiting public comment to items listed on the meeting agenda. Carlson said some districts deny patrons the ability to speak at meetings when their topics are not on the posted agenda and that the change would restore community members' ability to raise issues in public comment.

"This is...really a cleanup bill trying to allow the public to comment," Carlson said, adding that the change would give residents a way to raise items they cannot otherwise place on the agenda.

Supporters who testified in favor included parents and local board members. Melanie Phillips of Kuna described a 2021 effort to persuade her district to use advanced opportunities funds to subsidize driver education; after several months of being rebuffed she used the public-comment period at a board meeting and the district ultimately approved the program. "If I had been restricted during delegations to only the items on the agenda, I would never have had a voice," Phillips told the committee.

Christina Hardy, a patron from District 23, and Leslie Bjerke, vice chair of the Coeur d'Alene school board, also said allowing non-agenda public comments improves transparency and community trust and that their boards had managed public comment without serious problems.

The Idaho School Boards Association opposed the bill in its current form. Quinn Perry, ISBA deputy director, said the law enacted last year — Senate Bill 1361 — was carefully crafted to require public comment at regular meetings while limiting that comment to agenda items to keep meetings focused and to avoid circumventing established grievance processes. "School board meetings are not like a town hall meeting," Perry said. "School board meetings are a business meeting held in public."

Perry and other witnesses stressed concerns that unrestricted public comment could raise open-meeting and quasi-judicial issues — for example, by exposing board members to evidence outside a student-expulsion or personnel hearing that could later bias a proceeding.

After extended questioning and several senators offering alternative approaches, Senator Woodward moved to send SB 1007 to the fourteenth order for possible amendment; the motion was seconded and carried on a voice vote. Committee members said they expected to negotiate language that would protect boards' ability to manage meetings while preserving community access and suggested follow-up briefings, including from the State Department of Education, to clarify how advanced opportunities funds are used for programs like driver education.

The motion sends the bill to the amending process rather than advancing it immediately to the floor, giving lawmakers time to craft language that balances community access with board operational and legal constraints.