School board members are rightly focused on public education for student success and all the legislation swirling around it. But school boards are also governmental entities that must follow state public meetings law.
There are a few bills this session that relate to board governance and public meetings that should be on school board members’ radar.
Senate Bill 1109: In 2024, the Legislature passed SB 1502, which required boards of school districts, education service districts, community colleges and public universities to record all their public meetings and post the recordings on their websites.
The bill was written in such a way that it applied to all board public meetings, including subcommittee meetings and advisory committee meetings. This was not the intent.
Morgan Allen from the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators and I worked on SB 1109 to clarify the intent. SB 1109 would require the recording of school district, ESD, community college and public university board meetings. School boards would not be required to record and post the subcommittee and advisory committee meetings, just the main school board meetings.
SB 1109 passed the Senate in April and is scheduled for a public hearing in the House Education Committee on Monday, May 5, and a possible committee vote on Wednesday, May 7. I expect it to pass the House as well.
House Bill 2453: In 2021, the Legislature passed SB 732, which required school districts to create equity advisory committees to advise district leaders on issues related to unrepresented students. The committees are made up of members from the community. The larger districts were required to convene the committees by 2022 and the smaller ones by September 2025.
The testimony from 2021 revealed that the committees were intended to operate outside the traditional setting of school board meetings. However, the way the bill was written, the committees were subject to public meetings law, requiring them to accept public comment and to be recorded and posted on the district website.
Again, Allen and I worked on HB 2453 to clarify intent. Under HB 2453, equity advisory committees would report to the school superintendent, with the option of presenting their findings to the district school board. This fix would remove them from public meetings law rules. The bill passed the House in April and has a public hearing in the Senate Education Committee on Monday, May 5.
House Bill 3883: Oregon law does not require public bodies to take comment at public meetings, although most do as a matter of policy. HB 3883 would require the governing body of public bodies to provide a reasonable amount of time for comment at the beginning of every public meeting.
I am working with the sponsor of the bill to narrow the scope because we are running into similar issues to the ones we are trying to fix with SB 1109. HB 3883 is in the House Rules Committee, which isn’t bound by policy committee deadlines. I am expecting an amendment to the bill, and it will likely be scheduled for a work session soon after.
– Adrienne Anderson
OSBA Government Relations Counsel
