The rights of citizens to speak at meetings of the East Penn Board of School Directors has fallen under scrutiny again as the board assents to consider revisions to its existing policy.

The current policy stipulates the public may address the board on non-agenda items following the opening of the meeting and prior to any business of the board. The public may speak for up to three minutes. Questions are submitted and responded to by the administrative staff and concerns such as the busing situation at Willow Lane are often taken into serious consideration and become policies and changes later implemented as a result.

But Lynn Donches believes the public deserves more. At the tail end of an otherwise business-as-usual meeting came two proposed draft policies by Donches, who drew inspiration for her "more efficient" method of conducting business from Lower Macungie and Upper Milford Townships Board of Commissioners meetings.

Donches proposed the public be allowed input on each agenda item immediately before the board votes following their own discussion. Further, each citizen would have the opportunity to speak on any agenda item at the end of the meeting prior to adjournment. The policy would grant an open dialogue between board members and the public, encouraging direct questions and immediate answers, with the three-minute rule not applying to any responses and dialogue time.

Vice president of the board, Alan Earnshaw, pointed out the immediate flaws, namely the concern with the First Amendment rights of all citizens. Donches's revisions restrict the content of public comments, forbidding "charges or complaints against individual employees of the district" which shall be "presented to the Superintendent and/or the board in writing, signed by the complainant."

Furthermore, "The presiding officer may interrupt or terminate a participant's statement when the statement is too lengthy, personally directed, abusive, obscene or irrelevant..." a clause Earnshaw found "provides unilateral authority [to the presiding officer] to determine what is appropriate." This, he said, would place the board in the position of being dictatorial, a direction it distinctly wished to avoid.

Superintendent Thomas Seidenberger had researched 60 Pennsylvania school districts, of which only three matched the language characterizing Donches's proposal. "We should do our homework before making any commitments on the fly," Seidenberger demurred.

Board president Charles Ballard, however, decried the proposed meeting structure as one prone to allowing people to drag meetings on for hours; leaving public comment until the end of the meeting "disenfranchises the public" by discouraging them to speak by making them wait, argued Ballard.

"If someone can't tell you what their grievance is in three minutes they probably couldn't do it in 30," Ballard said. "I don't think it's appropriate to engage in arguments on the floor about what you're doing [as a board]."

Donches reminded Ballard of an earlier statement regarding the lack of action in the Pa. legislature on sale of state stores due to the election season, citing it as a political excuse. "Nothing gets done ever because something comes up to stop someone from bringing it up. You do have more information after hearing more conversation from residents. We could have better input from the public and they deserve it."

The board voted to direct the administration to consider Donches's proposed revision material. The process set in motion will proceed through the board systematically, with a draft from the administration presented for a first reading at a board meeting where it will be advertised on the agenda. A second reading will follow with at least one meeting between the two readings to allow for changes and revisions as well as further consideration. Finally, the revised policy will be voted on for adoption at a final meeting. If the process drags out a policy committee is formed.

Along the way changes are submitted to the Pennsylvania School Board Association and their policy program to which EPSD subscribes, along with some 500 other Pa. districts. The PSBA sends out their own proposals based on pending legislature, precedence and new laws that might affect the language of the policy.

Donches had also presented a draft for another policy to "advise the engagement of professional services...[for the purpose of] establish[ing] a procedure for the engagement of services from professional firms." Seidenberger had looked into this, too. He estimated over 85 separate services this might encompass, including speech therapists, doctors to perform thousands of student physicals, architects hired to design or redesign school buildings, engineers contracted for capital projects, even janitorial staff.

The policy is problematic because it would mean determining what constitutes a professional service and it creates extra costs for administrative time to process all the paperwork Donches demands. When questioned on her intent, Donches used district auditors as an example, questioning why the district never sought bids from new auditors to see "what else is out there" or give someone else a chance who might be interested in providing services to the district. Earnshaw countered any auditor would address that themselves as part of their job.