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A new law requiring Oregon school districts to post visual and audio recordings of school board meetings within seven days will present challenges to smaller and more affluent districts.
Subcommittee meetings attended by a quorum of board members are also required to upload proceedings online within seven days.
Exemption Given to Districts With 50 or Fewer Students
However, the new law exempts school districts with 50 or fewer students from visual recordings of executive meetings at which topics like student or employee discipline, and labor contracts, are discussed and to which the public is banned from attending.
The new law also allows school boards with no broadband internet access to post audio uploads. However, these must be uploaded within a seven-day period.
The governing boards of public universities and community colleges must also adhere to the new law.
Most of Portland’s School Districts Have Been Posting Board Meetings Online Within One or Two Days
Posting board meetings online is nothing new to some of Oregon’s school districts. Most school districts in Portland post recordings of their board meetings within one or two days on channels like YouTube and Vimeo, including Beaverton, Gresham-Barlow, and Portland public schools.
The Oregon Board of Education Will Have to Adopt a New Methodology
However, a new methodology will have to be introduced by the Oregon Board of Education (OBE) that does not post recordings, sometimes several weeks after meetings. The OBE sets policies and standards for the state’s 197 school districts, as well as the 19 education service districts.
Multnomah Education Service District (MESD) is another education cooperative that must adapt to the new law. The MESD handles specialized and expensive services for the county’s eight school districts. While the MESD has offered Zoom links for public participation at virtual meetings, it has not recorded the event for public review.
Originally, Senate Bill 1502, approved in 2023, required all school districts to livestream board meetings and to post audio recordings online within a week.
A pushback by several smaller Oregon school districts, already struggling to cope with limited budgets, argued that they could not afford the expensive investment in technology required to adhere to the new law.
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