Jerome Joint School District trustees this month will consider adopting a policy that removes a long-standing prohibition on audio and visual recordings during public school board meetings.
School district staff on Aug. 26 told a local television reporter and newspaper reporter that it is against district policy to record a school board meeting. Superintendent Brent Johnson said he consulted with legal counsel the next morning, then called KMVT and the Twin Falls Times-News to say that policy needs to be amended. Trustees took a first reading of the updated policy on Sept. 23 and are expected to adopt the policy on Oct. 28.
“We needed to update that,” Johnson told EdNews on Monday. “That hadn’t been our practice and certainly isn’t our practice moving forward. So we want it to be open.”
While the new policy will allow attendees to record meetings, the district is not following a growing trend of other districts that provide patrons the opportunity to watch meetings from home as they happen, or days later. Jerome provides live audio via a Zoom link in meeting agendas, but does not record that audio for later listening.
About 30% of Idaho school districts and charters provide livestreams of meetings, an EdNews review found this week, a 10% increase from two years ago. More districts started livestreaming meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic when social distancing was necessary.
Jerome has had a policy on the books since 2006 that regulates conduct at open meetings. The policy broadly prohibits the public from using audio recording devices, cameras and video equipment during school board meetings. The board may allow the public to take photos and videos, however, when it “would be desirable” for the board, such as when the district presents awards or swears in new trustees.
A blanket ban on video and audio recording is beyond unreasonable, according to the Idaho Press Club, and violates the media’s constitutionally protected rights to cover government entities.
“We believe that your policy regarding video and audio recording violates Idaho’s open government laws, previous court rulings, and the First Amendment,” President Melissa Davlin wrote in a Sept. 2 letter to Jerome trustees.
The 19-year-old policy provides several explanations for the prohibition. It states audio recorders are “easily tampered with” and those tampered recordings might embarrass trustees. If the public is allowed to record meetings, then there must be an official recording prepared by the district “to secure the sanctity of the record.” High quality recording equipment is expensive, the policy adds.
“Fears of embarrassment or saying something inarticulate, as cited in section 5-a of your policy, do not trump the First Amendment,” Davlin wrote in the Sept. 2 letter.
The new policy simply crosses out the entire old policy and adds a section called, “Board Meeting News Coverage.”
“One of the paramount responsibilities of the Board of Trustees is to keep the public informed of its actions,” the new policy states. “Consequently, local news media representatives shall be welcome and encouraged to attend all regular and special meetings of the Board.”
READ: Jerome revised media policy
Audio, photo and video recordings are allowed at all meetings open to the public under the new policy. Camera operators must limit disruption and cannot obstruct the view between the audience and trustees.
Johnson, who was hired in July 2024, said the district consulted with the Idaho School Boards Association and used its model policy.
“We try and stay within their model policies as they’ve been legally approved and consulted with a team of attorneys,” he said.
In a written statement to EdNews on Tuesday, Davlin said she is pleased to see the proposed policy welcomes recording of public meetings.
“I hope the board officially adopts it, and that both the public and local media continue to attend these meetings,” Davlin wrote.
How other school districts handle recordings
Idaho law does not require school districts to livestream or record meetings, but does require written minutes within a “reasonable time.” There is a wide variety in how Idaho school districts allow the public to follow along if they can’t attend a meeting in person.
An EdNews review this week of school district and charter school websites found 57 of 192, about 30%, livestream board meetings. That’s a 10% increase over the past two years. An EdNews review in 2023 found 39 of 186 districts and charters livestream meetings.
The review this week also found four districts post video recordings after meetings, but do not livestream, and three provide audio only.
Currently, the five largest districts in Idaho livestream and archive school board meetings on YouTube. West Ada and Boise school districts have catalogs of recordings going back to 2020. For most meetings in West Ada, many more people watch the videos than attend in person. The videos have hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of views.
Let us know how you follow your local school board meetings when you can’t attend in person. Do you have any concerns with how your district records, or doesn’t record, meetings? Contact me at sean@idahoednews.org.
Vallivue, the sixth largest district, provides a call-in option that provides live audio during meetings. The district does not record meetings, deputy board clerk Jenny Titus confirmed. She said there haven’t been a lot requests for video recordings from patrons who can’t attend. The number of people who call during the meetings varies from month to month.
“Sometimes we have as little as five callers, sometimes we have up to 25 or 30,” Titus said. “It kind of depends on what’s going on and what’s on the agenda.”
Twin Falls School District livestreams meetings on YouTube, but does not record or archive them for later. The livestreams are provided as a courtesy, according to district spokesperson Eva Craner. If the district recorded meetings, those recordings would become an official record and the meetings would have to stop if the recording fails. Those records would also have to be maintained permanently, Craner said, and the district would likely have to purchase more servers and cloud storage solutions.
“With roughly 42 hours of meetings a year, conservatively, that storage could become costly quickly,” Craner wrote in an email to EdNews.
YouTube will store videos, Craner added, but that is part of the overall storage the district has available through Google that the district uses to store other documents in the cloud.
In Boise School District, spokesperson Dan Hollar said the district does not pay for storage on YouTube and the meetings would continue if the recording fails. But there are several hours of staffing costs to run the livestreams as well as costs to purchase and maintain equipment. Agendas include a disclaimer:
“As a courtesy, the meeting will be live-streamed and the link will be provided immediately prior to the meeting,” the agendas state. “Please note, if there are technical difficulties, the meeting will continue as scheduled.”
EdNews data analyst Randy Schrader contributed to this report.
