Board of education compromises on changes to public participation policy

The Northport-East Northport board of education (BOE) approved last week updates to the district’s public participation policy, after a second read and lengthy discussion. Going forward, resident comments will be limited to three minutes (reduced from five minutes) for both agenda and non-agenda (or general) items. 

Comments related to agenda items will now take place before they are addressed by the board, requiring residents to review the agenda and formulate questions beforehand. General public participation will take place after all business items have been completed. All residents who wish to speak must submit a card with their name, address and reason for speaking or question to the board. Cards can be submitted at any time before or during the public participation period. 

The thirty-minute time limit for each public participation period was removed during the second read. 

The finalized public participation policy is currently being reviewed by district counsel and will be posted to the district website’s Board Docs site upon its completion, according to officials. Currently, agendas for each BOE meeting can be found here. Agendas are required to be posted 24 hours prior to a BOE meeting, though they are often shared earlier.