By Diana XinThe Daily Northwestern

The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board decided Monday night to restructure their meetings.

Monday also was the first regular meeting for new members Keith Terry, Katie Bailey and Bonnie Lockhart. Board member Jerome Summers was elected vice president and board president Mary Erickson was re-elected for another one-year term.

With new members, Erickson proposed that the board return to having bimonthly school board meetings.

“I have suggested that we have the first meeting be a working meeting, where we don’t have such a formal set-up,” she said.

Now, the public often discusses issues with board members at program and policy committee meetings, Erickson said. The public will now be allowed to comment at working meetings.

The bimonthly meetings would eliminate the need for special meetings and “lighten the load” for board members, she said.

“It’d give us more flexibility to schedule something to vote,” Erickson said. “It would ensure that we get out at a reasonable hour, which is something we really need to work on this year.”

Board member Sharon Sheehan estimated that the board had 26 meetings this year, though only 12 were scheduled.

Board members Bailey, Lockhart and Summers said they were concerned this structure would hinder public comment.

“I’m afraid we might eliminate very valuable input,” Bailey said.

Lockhart said program and policy committee meetings allow the public to join the table of board members and “rub shoulders” with board members more informally.

But Erickson said the informality had its drawbacks.

“There were times when we got almost too loose,” Erickson said. “We had people commenting on things that weren’t on the table. We want to make it more limited and focused.”

Erickson said she attended meetings where public comment continued for three hours and school board members were not able to address important issues.

“Public comment is fine,” Erickson said, “but if board members are supposed to be discussing something, they need their time, too. The working meeting would not hold back people from talking with us. They’d be talking to the whole board, and we can have everyone participate formally.”

Although it had planned to do so, the board was unable to fit discussion of next school year’s goals into this meeting. They will address the goals at their working meeting on June 4.

Reach Diana Xin at [email protected].