Tallahassee Reports has learned that the Leon County School Board Agenda Review/Workshop meetings – regularly conducted on the Monday ahead of the LCSB business meetings – appear to be in violation of Florida’s open government Sunshine Law by failing to record minutes of the meetings.

At these meetings Leon County School Board members review and ask questions about the agenda which is scheduled to be covered the next day in a more public setting.

Unlike the regular Tuesday meetings, these Monday meetings are not streamed live and do not encourage the public to attend or speak.

Florida Statutes section 286.011(2) requires “that minutes of a meeting of a public board or commission be promptly recorded and open to public inspection.”

Advisory opinions on the issue define “prompt” as “done, performed, delivered, etc., at once or without delay.”

Last week, on August 15th, TR requested minutes of three Agenda Review/Workshop meetings related to the bus system changes designed by EDULOG.

However, as of August 20th, the minutes were unavailable.

A follow-up discussion with an LCS official revealed that the minutes for the meetings were not available and were being recreated.

When reached by Tallahassee Reports, LCS Board Attorney Opal McKinney-Williams said she had no comment on the issue.

A review of meeting postings on the LCS “Boarddocs” system shows the Agenda Review/Workshop meetings were consistently scheduled beginning in 2017. Superintendent Rocky Hanna was elected in November, 2016.

Before 2017, there is no indication that regular Agenda Review/Workshop meetings were held.

The issue came to TR’s attention when it was discovered that an EDULOG report related to the redesign of the transportation system was presented at the May 13th Agenda Review/Workshop meeting but not at the regularly scheduled LCSB meeting set for May 14, 2019.

TR reviewed the LCS website and could not find any meeting minutes, audio, or video of the Agenda Review.

TR has been told that the minutes of that meeting will be provided when they are created.

