School board meetings have become a source of heated and highly contentious debate in recent years with parents and community members raising concerns over any number of issues.
When speaking, some public commenters may veer into territory where they wish to reference the conduct of specific teachers or staff members. Depending on the district, however, doing so is not always permissible.
Policies prohibiting this are likely to become more widespread in light of guidance from the Maine School Management Association (MSMA) recommending that school boards adopt rules blocking comments calling out particular employees.
“Personnel performance is not something that should be a matter during a public comment period,” MSMA Executive Director Steve Bailey told WGME.
A sample policy sent by the MSMA to school districts over the summer that would disallow comments — either positive or negative — related to things like job performance or conduct of a school employee.
One school district in Maine that already has a policy along these lines in place is MSAD 17 of Oxford Hills.
According to documents on the school board’s website, public commenters are not allowed to raise “any complaints or accusations…against any personnel.”
“No complaints or allegations will be allowed at Board meetings concerning any person employed by the school system or against particular students,” the board’s policy states. “Personal matters or complaints concerning student or staff issues will not be considered in a public meeting but will be referred through established policies and procedures.”
Instead of speaking about such concerns publicly at school board meetings, parents and community members are directed “to seek a resolution at the lowest possible level.”
“If the complaint cannot be resolved at the lowest level, the person initiating the complaint may appeal the decision to the next level,” the policy says.
Complaints that “cannot be resolved at any lower level” may be appealed to the Superintendent. Should the complaint remain unresolved at this stage, “the person making the complaint may request that the matter be placed on the agenda of the next regular School Board meeting.”
Troy Ripley — Chair of the MSAD 17 school board — told the Maine Wire that although the school board’s policy “does not allow the ‘calling out’ of employees in that public setting, “it does give “a clear path for those concerns to be addressed, starting at the lowest level and culminating with the Board should it be necessary.”
“[These policies] allow for the timely and efficient conduct of our school board meetings while also giving our community members an avenue to be heard,” Ripley said.
Ripley also noted that the only employee who answers directly to the school board is the Superintendent, meaning that any other personnel complaints would be largely irrelevant and inappropriate for a school board setting.
“Calling out the ‘lunch lady’ in public is not time well spent in resolving an issue with the cafeteria or her as she is not employed by the Board,” Ripley said.
While some have raised First Amendment concerns in relation to policies such as these which restrict the content of public comments, supporters of these policies suggest that they do not directly violate free speech rights.
“Understanding that the 1st Amendment does not protect someone yelling ‘fire’ in a movie theater as free speech,” Ripley said, “I believe the court system is the appropriate venue to address any free speech concerns that may arise.”
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided earlier this year that a particular district’s “civility restraints” were unconstitutional on account of the fact that “‘peaceable and orderly’ is not the same as ‘respectful and courteous.'”
It is not clear, however, that this type of judicial precedent is relevant for understanding the Constitutionality of the MSMA’s new guidance, as prohibiting “offensive” speech cannot necessarily be equated with barring statements calling out specific individuals.
That said, while it is generally common practice for speech in a government forum to be constrained by predetermined time limits, restricting the permissible content of a citizen’s comment is a far murkier area of law.
Brett R. Nolan, a senior attorney with the Institute for Free Speech — a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. — told Central Maine that allowing citizens to freely criticize government employees is an integral purpose of the First Amendment “because what they’re doing affects you, and you’re paying their salary.”
Steve Bailey, Executive Director of the MSMA told Central Maine that the organization’s decision to update their policy recommendations “is partly a response to conservative activist [Shawn] McBreairty’s efforts to ‘voraciously (damage) the reputation of individuals’ in Bangor-area school districts.”
Prior to 2019, school boards did not — by law — have to build time into their meetings for public comment. This changed, however, when the State Legislature approved LD 721 which required boards to provide “the opportunity for the public to comment on school and education matters at a school board meeting.”
“The law says members of the public can comment on ‘school and education matters,’ but it’s broad, and we needed a little more definition of what that means,” Bailey told Central Maine. “That’s where we felt the need to craft the guidance for the public on what they could and couldn’t say (about personnel).”
It is not yet known how many school districts throughout the state that do not currently have these policies on the books will choose to follow the MSMA’s guidance in the coming months.
Steve Bailey and other representatives from the Maine School Management Association did not respond to a request for comment from the Maine Wire.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="22641 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=22641">13 Comments
““If the complaint cannot be resolved at the lowest level, the person initiating the complaint may appeal the decision to the next level,” the policy says.”
Translation: there are a number of hoops for you to jump through, each designed to hamper your desire to see your complaints to an end. This process will take time…each one having to be arbitrated by a panel. When and if your complaint has made it to ‘the top’, it could be denied outright. Policy!
Remove your children from these indoctrination centers. If you have to teach them homeschool, they’ll be way better off mentally!
The only way to stop and change our schools is for good,honest ,God FEARING, people to run for our school boards ,and take back our schools ,and teach our , YOUR kids what should be taught in schools. I totally agree with rickytickysavvy, taking your kids out of these rotten culturally polluted schools must ,must be done!
Any school board that follows this guidance should be thrown out at the next election. Both the law and Bible are very clear that parents, not teachers or school boards, are responsible for their children. This is more of the extremist leftist crap to interfere with basic parents rights.
Just remember that the next time you decide to have a chat with your School Board, those 9 or so members only have one person they, at least in theory, direct and hold to account: the School Superintendent.
So the Board of Directors, as I see it, chosen by the public to represent their interests in the School System, implements their policy, and the wishes of the public, by having the Super attend their Board meetings (presumably.) No doubt the School Board separately holds regular staff meetings with the Board Chair or some other subset of the Board to ensure the wishes of the Board, as employees of the public, are being implemented on a timely and effective basis.
Fortunately for the public, there is an unelected Maine School Board Association in Augusta to reinforce the public’s wishes with the Board. So there are two means by which our wishes are reinforced with the School Department establishment.
On a related note, did you know the word gullible does not appear in the Dictionary?
I would imagine a teacher would have to be quite ineffective or very radical to attract the ire of a parent. To tell parents that they have to go through a chain of layers to get resolution is ludicrous. Schools as well as bureaucracies are famous for giving people the run around from one department another to until people finally give up. This is more of that as it directly takes away the voice of the parent who feels that someone is harmful to their child. The harm would continue indefinitely as the proposed process could take many months with postponements and various shenanigans created by whoever is in charge of the next step toward resolution. It would come down to whatever belief the person in charge choose to hold and that would supersede any different point of view.
This basically would take away the rights of parents to be heard in a public forum. I do not imagine any parent going public about any individual without very good reason. This is all about discouraging the the voice of free speech within a public forum.
How dare you criticize your edjewcators?
If we take some children out of the system, but leave others behind. The failed system still has those to indoctrinate. We must take the system back. That is a lot of work and many entrenched bureaucrats fighting against us for their government paychecks. I invoke some famous words “ Let’s Roll.”
Who the hell gave the MSMA the authority to change the law?
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Everything should be made public when dealing with school employees, faculty, academics, policies. When dealing with things that have to do with any person who interacts with students whether it be something good or bad should always be public information from step one until the issue is resolved and should able to be discussed at anytime by anyone who has kids attending the school or working at the school.
Unless it is a class on anatomy and physiology (yes some high schools in some states have them) there is no reason for any book with nudity in the school (anatomy books are usually in classroom only or are too medical for any library patron). Why would books like the one depicted even be on a school shelf. They can talk about relationships without pictures and without getting into intimate details. In my opinion
I am pro lgbtqia education but you can go too far with any depictions.
Controversial decision to prevent parents from publicly criticizing teachers and school personnel in the state of Maine! On the one hand, indeed, criticism should be formulated in a constructive manner and with respect for the dignity of employees. However, a total ban on comments seems too radical a solution.
How about offering alternative, healthier channels of communication? For example, surveys assessing satisfaction with the school’s work, boxes of ideas for improvement or meetings with parents. Positive, peer relationships are key.
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