The Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208 Board of Education is going paperless.
Last week the school board voted unanimously to purchase the BoardBook program from the Illinois Association of School Boards for a cost of $2,000 a year. This program will post the board’s agenda and all supporting documents for each meeting on the Internet.
Instead of getting a thick packet of paper before each meeting, board members will just go to the Internet to access the board agenda and all supporting documents.
This material will also be accessible to members of the public, although information pertaining to closed session material will be kept private. When the minutes of a meeting are approved, they will be posted on the district’s web page alongside that meeting.
Board members who do not have laptop computers or tablet devices will follow along at board meetings with school laptops they can use during meetings.
“This should really help with transparency and communication,” said District 208 Superintendent Kevin Skinkis. “We’re trying to not only get the board to go green and be more efficient, but also the administration.”
Riverside Elementary School District 96 adopted BoardBook nearly two years ago.
“There’s really no downside to it,” said Nancy Jensen, who is serving her third term on the District 96 school board. “You can access it at any time and you have historical information any time you need to go back to it without having to store file cabinets worth of old board packets. The public can get at it without going to the meetings and prior to the meeting.”
