School Based Decision Making Council

As a result of the COVID-19 emergency, the General Assembly enacted SB 150, which temporarily amended the open meetings law. School councils can conduct any meeting, regular or special, by using the video-teleconferencing law KRS 61.826. The Attorney General, in an advisory opinion, clarified that all video-teleconferencing meetings during this COVID time period must follow the notice requirements of the special meetings laws. Thus, SBDM regular meetings using video-teleconferencing should send a notice with the meeting date, time, place, and attach an agenda, at least 24 hours before the regular meeting. The Attorney General said that even though the agenda is sent with the notice that the meeting is still a regular and not a special meeting. If the school council wants to discuss an item not on the original agenda, then the members can make this decision to amend the agenda during the regular meeting and record the action in the minutes.  Of course, special meetings must still only discuss items listed on the agenda attached to the meeting notice.

To summarize, all regular and special school council meetings using video-teleconferencing during this COVID emergency must send out notice at least 24 hours in advance with the following specifications:

• Date
• Time
• Location (which could be the teleconferencing link)
• Agenda:
  • Regular meetings must have an agenda, which can be amended during the meeting. Record changes in the minutes.
  • Special called meetings must have a set agenda. No additions can be made during the meeting, but deletions can occur.

KDE has guidance and webcasts to help prepare for addressing academic gaps when schools restart. The focus is on:

• Assessing the academic gaps that exist from 2019-2020 school year;
• Adjusting 2020-2021 curriculum to address potential knowledge gaps ; and
• Using formative assessment to inform 2020-2021 instructional decisions.

Please remember that all election information is available online at kasc.net.

We’d love to hear from schools who have successfully conducted online elections this spring. Email kasc@kasc.net to share the platform and pertinent details that we can share with other schools who are now planning their elections.