Mat-Su School Board proposes lottery system for public comments

The Matanuska Susitna Borough School District school board introduced a proposed policy change aimed at public participation during the school board meetings.

The most notable proposed policy change is related to the number of speakers the school board is allowing to speak during the public participation segment of the meeting. The proposal reads:

“If more than 20 people sign up for each hour of public participation, a lottery system will be used.”

There was no discussion of what the lottery system would entail or how to ensure that it would truly be random names selected to speak.

Board Policy 9323 changes were introduced during the August 16th school board, after school board members went to retreat over the summer.

Katie Gardner, Deputy Superintendent of Business and Operations, said before the proposal was read into the record, that this was an item that was addressed during the Board retreat and that the Policy Committee, with the superintendent, worked on these revisions and put them forward for the Board’s consideration.

The current school board Policy Committee members are Kathy McCollum, Jacob Butcher, and Ole Larson.

The changes are meant to “ensure appropriate and efficient meetings.”

“Some of the rewriting here was just kind of a cleaning up to do what we have been doing, and trying to make it fair for people who come to speak because the sign-up process became kind of difficult at some points when we had many people, sometimes 30 and 40 people that wanted to speak and we only have a 1-hour time limit, and people had to be cut off,” said MSBSD school board member Kathy McCollum, who is part of the policy committee to drew up this policy change proposal.

“Part of this was that, if a large number of people sign up and we believe that it’s going to take more than hour, we’ll use a lottery system to just pull the numbers so it can be fair,” said McCollum.

Earlier this year, first when the school bus drivers went on strike, and later when the teachers were in negotiations and had voted to authorize a strike, the gallery was filled to capacity with people wanting to speak, public participation would often go for hours, similar to several marathon Mat Su Borough assembly meetings. However, after observing several of the meetings, there was never an imposed time limit as most meetings were concluded within a reasonable hour.

Currently, the board has a policy that meetings will be concluded by 10:00 pm, although they have the option to make a motion to extend the meeting if needed.

Reaction has been swift and negative, with many asking why this further step was needed, and expressing frustration over the control the board is trying to have over public input and limiting communication with the school board.

“I am concerned that the randomization of people who have signed up to speak is an attempt to silence more voices. There are times, when a group of people need more than three minutes to communicate with the board and the public. It has occurred in the past that a group will have successive people present three minute portions of a longer speech in order to effectively communicate. This randomization will prevent that,” said Diane Shibe.

Residents continue to have the option of emailing their respective district members, as well as the school board as a whole, but for some like Shibe, the message can often carry more weight with an in-person plea.

“Speaking at a public meeting is more impactful and reaches more people than sending an email to the board. This is another example of silencing people’s voices.

Meanwhile, McCollum told the school board that she believed there were a number of people within the community unable to get to the meetings early enough to sign up to speak.

“They come after work and they should still have the right to speak if it works out for them.”

The proposed policy change is on the agenda for the upcoming MSBSD school board meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 6 at 6 p.m. at the MSBSD Administration Building in Palmer.