The Arlington Heights School District 25 Board of Education showed the public how to use a new board-management platform, Diligent Community, at its Oct. 21 regular meeting.

The demonstration explained how the public can find agendas and recordings at www.sd25.org and sign up to receive email alerts when meetings or agendas are published. Drilled-down agenda pages include attachments and a link to the district's YouTube livestream, board staff said.

Board administrative staff member Lana Bridal introduced the change, saying, “BoardDocs... are sunsetting the program.” Bridal walked the board and public through the new public view and said board members have a separate member view with annotation tools. She told the board the new system allows members to “highlight, underline, add notes” in their personal logins but does not remove documents from the public record.

Board members who have used the platform praised the cleaner layout and easier navigation. Board member Anisha (Board member) said the format was “cleaner” and easier to navigate. Another member asked whether notes saved in a member's view are private; Bridal replied they are saved only to the individual's login. Board members also asked whether a user could delete documents; Bridal and other staff confirmed members do not have permission to remove items from the public view.

The board did not take formal action on the platform during the meeting; staff said training occurred over the summer and the public view was live for that evening's meeting. Bridal reminded board members to experiment with the tools and contact her with follow-up questions.

The change consolidates board content from the district's BoardDocs archive (which the staff said began in either 2018 or 2020) into Diligent Community and aims to provide searchable agendas, archived meetings and email subscription features for the public.