Urbandale Community School District: School Board Meeting: How To Attend & Procedure To Request Public Comment

Press release from the Urbandale Community School District:

February 17th, 2022

Livestream
School Board Meetings and School Board Work Sessions will livestream on the District YouTube Channel and can be accessed below when in progress.

Meeting Dates & Descriptions
All UCSD Work Session Meetings and Regular Board Meetings are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Please view Board Meeting dates here.

Months when there are two meetings, the first meeting will be a Work Session Meeting. A Work Session is a meeting of the Board where facts are gathered and in-depth discussion is held, but where no final action is taken. The public shall have a right to be present unless a topic may be discussed in closed session, but the public shall not have a right to address the Board during a Work Session. All actions and communications from the public will take place at the next Regular School Board meeting. For more information about Board Meetings, please view Board Policy 209.

How To Attend A School Board Meeting
UCSD School Board Meetings are being conducted in person while simultaneously livestreaming on the District YouTube Channel. To confirm the location of each meeting and view the agenda, please visit the Simbli site, select “Meetings,” select “Meetings Listing,” and select the title of the meeting.

Given the existing COVID-19 pandemic, combined with space limitations of the meeting room, community members are invited to attend the meeting in a socially distanced manner to the extent possible. Seating will be on a first come, first seated basis. Face masks are optional, but strongly encouraged in order to help mitigate transmission of the COVID-19 virus. 

Procedure For Public Comment During A School Board Meeting
The following procedures will be followed for individuals to address the Board of Directors at School Board Meetings:

• Citizens wishing to address the Board on a certain agenda item must notify the Board Secretary/CFO, Mary Beth Fast, prior to the board meeting (by 3:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting) giving their name, address, and subject to be discussed and comments they wish to share.
• Citizens may either share their public comment in person at the meeting, being mindful of meeting room capacity limits, or submit their public comment via email by 3:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting to Board Secretary/CFO, Mary Beth Fast. The Board Secretary, or designee, will then read the comment during the “Communication From the Public” section of the agenda.
• The total period of time allotted for public comment is 30 minutes with five minutes being the maximum time allotted for each individual speaker (Policy No. 217).
• Individuals will speak in the order their public comment was received.
• If more than six requests for public comment are received, the time allotted for each speaker will need to reduced in order to stay within the 30-minute timeframe.
• A maximum of 10 requests for public comment will be allowed per meeting which provides speakers a total of three minutes to share their comment.
• If more than 10 requests for public comment are received, those individuals could choose to either contact the Board directly in order to share their comment or be placed on the public comment list for the next Board meeting.
• At the beginning of the “Communication From the Public” section of the agenda, the Board President or designee will state how many speakers are scheduled for the meeting and the time allotted for each speaker.
• The Board of Directors will generally take a subject raised during Open Forum under advisement, unless it is deemed that action is necessary immediately. The Board will attempt to have a response to Open Forum presentations as soon as practicable.

This press release was produced by the Urbandale Community School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.