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School committee approves new public-participation rule adding remote ADA comment option
Summary
The policy committee approved Policy 204-10 to keep two-minute oral comments for agenda items and add a Google Form option for people with ADA-recognized disabilities (or their caregivers) to submit written comments to be read into the record; public commenters raised concerns about notice, packet size and the practicality of reading many remote submissions aloud.
The City of Bogalusa School District policy committee approved an update to Policy 204-10 on public participation that keeps a two-minute limit for spoken comments tied to agenda items and adds a process for certain remote submissions intended to accommodate people with disabilities.
Dr. Hurst, who presented the revisions, said the board is migrating its policy manual to a vendor called Simbli and that three policies remain for approval. He described the new remote option: "The board shall allow any person with a disability recognized by Americans with Disabilities Act or a designated caregiver of the person to make a public comment by submitting a Google Form. The Google Form shall list the agenda item ... be received not less than 4 hours prior to the scheduled start of the meeting ... Include the sender's full name and home address. Provide the nature of the ADA recognized disability and the relationship to the person with the disability." He added that the superintendent or the superintendent's designee will make the final determination on whether a form meets the board's criteria and that accepted forms will be read into the record during the public-comment period for the related agenda item.
Public commenters pressed the committee on whether the change preserves meaningful participation. Felicia Mingo asked why the policy was only being presented now if it had purportedly already been changed at a prior meeting, saying, "if this is just coming before the board now, why was it already previously changed?" Debbie McLoud told the board the packet — she described about 80 items — was overwhelming for working parents and said the 4‑hour/24‑hour timelines and the requirement that the board read remote comments aloud would create impractical burdens: "This is crazy stuff ... there's no way I could do it in time ... You don't have notifications ... there's no way that any parent who's working or has to take care of kids is going to be able to go through 80 pages at a time."
In response the committee clarified that the district had eliminated a separate general public-comment period that was not tied to agenda items because of meeting-law constraints, and that the proposed rule maintains comment tied to agenda items while adding the remote avenue for ADA accommodations. The committee said remote submissions are limited to 200 words per agenda item and will be subject to the superintendent/designee review before being read into the record.
After discussion, a motion to approve Policy 204-10 was adopted in a roll-call vote recorded as 'Yes' from Dr. Cook, Mr. Kates and Ms. Brooks.
