The Oak Park School District 97 Board of Education soon may consider switching up seating arrangements for its bimonthly meetings to better accommodate attendees, according to two board members.
The seven-member board is now in its sixth month at its new 22,155-square-foot headquarters, 260 Madison St. The current meeting space, held in a room that can be partitioned into three smaller spaces, is more narrow than the board’s old space in the district’s former building, just a few blocks west at 970 Madison St.
The possible move comes as the board of education embarks on a push for better communication and more fiscal transparency with Oak Parkers.
“I want to remind board members — we have a unique responsibility to communicate with the community,” outgoing board President James Gates said April 11. “We’ve done OK, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Gates said he heard from constituents who wanted more information on school finance and said he expects the newly formed Committee for Community Engagement to help. Improving the meeting experience is part of that effort, too.
“We are hoping to reseat people so that nobody’s back is to the audience,” Holly Spurlock, a board member, said April 17. “We are looking to reconfigure the table. There no reason someone shouldn’t be able to hear.”
During board meetings, members sit around a rectangular table. Gates and Vice President Amy Felton are facing the audience. Attendees get a profile view of the other five board members, who sit along another side of the rectangular table. District administrators are opposite those five on the other side. Anyone giving public comment or a special guest, such as teacher advocating for a specific academic program, sits with his or her back to the audience.
Sometimes, as was the case at the last board meeting on April 11, remarks can be difficult to hear. One exchange between board member Rupa Datta and Assistant Superintendent Alicia Evans, prompted Superintendent Carol Kelley to interject: “Can you guys speak up? Because the people in the back can’t hear you.”
Gates said April 17 the group is still adjusting to the new space.
“It’s a good facility, but we have some things to work on and sound is one of them,” Gates said. “You learn things as you live in the space.”
Spurlock and Gates said they had not received complaints from constituents about hearing trouble at the meetings in the past but couldn’t speak for other members.
There are four overhead microphones above the board’s table but neither Gates nor Spurlock could say if they were on during the April 11 meeting.
“We haven’t heard anything, but obviously if there’s something wrong, we’d fix it,” Spurlock said, referring to the sound system.
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There are no individual microphones, a change from the district’s old meeting space. Gates said the individual microphones presented their own issues, including obstructing views of board members and random technological problems.
But, the board’s new meeting space has advantages over the old space, Gates said, including the ability to hold several different meetings concurrently using the partitions.
“One of the things we promised was the building would be more than an administrative building,” Gates said. “We told the architects from the get-go this isn’t a District 97 administrative building, it’s a community building.”
Thomas Vogel is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.