Board discusses communications protocol, legal counsel use and social media responsibilities
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Summary
At the retreat, board members reviewed how to coordinate with legal counsel, centralize media requests through staff, preserve confidentiality where required, and distinguish personal from official social-media accounts.
Board members devoted substantial time to internal communications policy: when and how to reach legal counsel, the role of the superintendent and staff liaison in responding to administrative questions, expectations for copying the full board on substantive constituent emails, and how to avoid serial-meeting risks in email threads.
The facilitator advised that board-related media requests be routed through the staff liaison so messaging is coordinated and to limit direct, uncoordinated legal calls to counsel because of cost and loss of institutional context. On confidentiality, members discussed narrowing language that could be read as an attempt to hide information and clarified that most board meeting content is public record except for properly convened executive sessions.
Social media guidance focused on the distinction between personal and official board pages; members noted that marking an account a 'public figure' or using personal accounts for political activity can change the public-record status of posts and interactions. The group stressed that official board pages cannot delete comments and that likes/comments on posts are visible signals the public will interpret.