Charles County Board of Education (BoE) member Jennifer Abell is again asserting her presence in the blogosphere. She accepted an invitation to present in a session at the 2008 National School Board Association’s (NSBA) annual conference in Orlando, Florida. She will take part in the session, “Blogging School District Leaders: Directly Engaging Your Community Using the Internet.”
Last April, The Bay Net’s article No Blogs Allowed exposed some of the obstacles Abell faced while attempting to share non-confidential information with the general public via her blog. She received heat from her fellow board members for posting her personal BoE meeting minutes immediately after the monthly meetings. The other board members’ comments seemed like sour grapes for Abell’s technical savvy and useful public service.
Last spring, meeting minutes were unavailable to the public until ratified at the Board’s next session. Because the Board often only met monthly, it usually took weeks for the minutes to become available. This delay made it impossible for members of the public who did not attend the board meeting, then held in the middle of the day, to be aware of issues until they were already being acted on.
At one point the Board and Vice-Chair Bobbie Wise, in particular, sought legal means by which to punish Abell and restrain her from broadcasting any public information before it came through official channels. Wise preferred to have all school system information posted to the official school system website or announced to the press by Chairman Donald Wade.
Board attorney Eric Schwartz informed Wise that Abell was legally allowed to post non-confidential information. However, he also suggested a method of punishment: the Chair could refuse to formally recognize an offending board member when she signaled her wish to speak during a meeting, silencing her unless she spoke out of turn.
Ironically, Abell’s idea for a public blog came from a previous NSBA conference which she attended with other members of the Board. Professional educators and boards of education from all over the nation attend these conferences to take workshops, view materials and learn about programs to improve the school districts in which they serve. At such a conference, Abell took a workshop teaching her to blog as a public service to her constituents. After the scuffle, the NSBA also invited Abell to guest blog in their panel of presenters on the association’s official blog.
After this recent invitation from the NSBA, Ms. Abell told The Bay Net, “I look forward to this opportunity. I am honored and
