Welcome to the new age
February 2, 2009
By Christopher Huber
LWSD streams meetings online
Forget driving to Redmond for school board meetings. The Lake Washington School District now streams its board meetings through a live video feed on its Web site. The district debuted the multimedia feature during its Jan. 26 meeting and will be archiving the full video and audio files from each meeting on the district Web site, said Kathryn Reith, the district’s director of communications.
“It’s good for people who have the opportunity to see what we’re up to,” said LWSD board member Doug Eglington. “It helps the transparency of our operation. I’m all for it. It’s really part of a healthy democracy.”
Reith said the district has been working to make board meetings more accessible since early 2008 and is still working on some of the details. Overall, she said, the process has gone smoothly, as the district has the necessary tools and sufficient technology funds.
“We can pay for this and not affect the general operating budget,” Reith said.
Last spring, voters in the district passed the technology levy, which funds classroom media, computer lab and telecommunications upgrades and various other technology, like Web development, district wide.
Reith said the district needs to adjust the lighting in the L.E. Scarr Resource Center — the location of the board meetings — to improve the quality of the video, but is trying to balance that with the comfort of the board members, who sit for more than two hours under the spotlights.
Streaming its board meetings is a step toward more transparent local government. Although some of the board meeting process is slow and mundane, Eglington said, open government is important.
“It helps because people have a sense of what we do,” he said. “It’s important to know that most of the work school board is engaged in is very arcane and downright dull, but important to know.”
To view or listen to the meetings, held every other week, visit www.lwsd.org and click on Board Meeting Videos in the About Us section. The next board meeting is at 7 p.m. Feb. 9.
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or chuber@isspress.com. Comment on this story at www.sammamishreview.com.
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