District bombs on new Public Participation plan

How are your mind-reading skills? You are going to need them.

As the board prepared to vote on July 9 to re-instate Public Participation, Libby Roof, Chief Communications Officer for the District, explained (at 49:05 on the video-recording) that the public would be able to submit written comments by early afternoon on the day of the board meeting via a Google document that would become available when the notice of the board meeting was posted. Then the comments (up to three minutes per comment) would be read to the board during the meeting. The printed comments would be given to the board.

I came away from that meeting thinking there would be a link on the agenda that would take a reader to the comment form. That isn't how it will work. You must find the form on the District's website.

When I examined the agenda for the July 21st board meeting, I found nothing that would tell me where to find the comment form.

Late Friday afternoon, an email from the District to media contacts provided a link to the location of the Comment Form on the District website. Here is that link:
www.richland2.org/School-Board/Public-Participation

The big question is, how will a member of the public ever find that form? The District has made it unnecessarily difficult for the public by hiding the form on the website.

Where is it?
Go to the the District's website at www.Richland2.org
Click on EXPLORE
Click on School Board
Click on PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Scroll down, fill out the form, and submit it by 1:00PM on the day of the board meeting

UPDATE: 7/18/20 3:35PM The District's homepage now shows that there is a process for submitting comments for Public Participation.