Want to attend or speak at a Wake school board meeting? You’ll have to win a lottery.
The Wake County school board will resume meeting face-to-face on Tuesday using new COVID-19 safety rules that limit how many members of the public can attend in person.
The school board is following state rules that limit attendance of indoor gatherings to 25 people, with most of the seats set aside for board members, staff and the media. A lottery will be used to determine which members of the public get seats in the board meeting room and to speak at the meeting.
Everyone who attends board meetings will have to pass a temperature check and a health screening and wear a face covering.
“You have to manage the number of people who show up and you want it to be as reasonable a number as you can in terms of the management and people coming in,” Tim Simmons, Wake’s chief communications officer, explained at a school board committee meeting this week.
The board has only held virtual meetings since schools were closed for in-person classes in March. The board approved Tuesday a reopening plan that will begin bringing back elementary and middle school students for in-person classes on Oct. 26.
“This does bring us back as a board face-to-face several weeks before … the return of our students and staff so we too want to mirror those thoughts on what we are looking to do,” school board chairman Keith Sutton said at this week’s policy committee meeting.
Limited number of seats for public
Board members were given an overview this week of the new board meeting protocols that will be used.
The district will set aside six seats for the public in the board meeting room. Registration for the seats and to also speak at the meeting will open 48 hours before the meeting begins and close at 5 p.m. the day before.
Six people and two alternates will be randomly notified the evening before the board meeting about seats. The seats will be given to the alternates if any of the other six people don’t confirm their attendance within two hours of the meeting.
A lottery will also be used to determine which of up to 16 people can speak during public comment. Speakers who don’t have a seat will have to stay in their car until they get notification on their phone to enter the building.
People who aren’t selected to speak in person can still submit written and video comments. The meetings will also continue to be streamed live online on the district’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/WakeCountySchools, for people who don’t get seats.
Before the pandemic, some board meetings had no speakers and only a handful of people attended. But the debate about school reopening has led to thousands of people watching the board meetings online and numerous public comments being submitted.
Simmons said the district will continue to stream the board meetings live. Due to the in-person capacity limits, he said they’ll also begin streaming board committee meetings.
Face masks required
The layout of the board meeting room is ls being changed to provide social distancing.
Staff don’t anticipate it will happen, Simmons said, but people will be asked to leave if they remove their face mask and refuse to put it back on. The meeting would be recessed if necessary.
“We do want to lay this out clearly up front so people understand the importance of wearing a mask and what happens if you don’t,” Simmons told the board.
Even though Wake has cited Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive orders and state health guidance for the new rules, critics of the districts have complained about the changes since they were first announced this week. Cooper announced Wednesday easing of various state rules, but he left in place the 25-person limit for indoor gatherings.
“Everyone but the taxpaying parent is being given priority to be in the presence of the #WCPSS board,” A.P. Dillon, a Wake County parent and frequent critic of the district, tweeted Tuesday. “Got it.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 2:27 PM.
