Mercer County board weighs supervisor‑led recordings for disciplinary meetings

Mercer County school trustees discussed a proposal March 27 to make recordings a routine, supervisor‑initiated part of disciplinary meetings so employees do not have to request recordings themselves.

"Would you like this to be recorded?" the Chair proposed supervisors ask at the start of any disciplinary meeting, and one board member argued that a single official recording avoids incomplete or competing private recordings. That approach, the Chair said, "completely eliminates the adversarial nature of it" and "protects the supervisor as well."

Trustees and staff raised legal and logistical concerns. Board members noted risks under FERPA and the need to avoid recordings including student or parent information being distributed. Staff recommended a single centrally managed recording device per supervisor, secure central storage with access controlled by Personnel, and a retained‑for‑a‑period approach: "...they need to be sent to Personnel" and recorded files could be organized by date and, "at the end of the year, they could be deleted," one trustee suggested.

Board members discussed the cost and distribution plan: purchasing small digital recorders for supervisors, providing a single version of the record to prevent incomplete recordings, determining who controls access and retention, and the practicality of issuing devices to every supervisor (a trustee estimated a July 1 rollout as a goal). The chair noted this is a policy change requiring further work: staff must return with a recommended policy and logistics (storage, access, retention periods and device procurement) and the board will not vote immediately.

Next steps: staff to draft a policy that specifies when supervisors should initiate recordings, storage and retention practices, access limitations, and recommended devices and costs for board review at a future meeting.