Orange School Trustees Will Hold Monthly Informal Study Sessions

Trustees of the Orange Unified School District are expected to approve a proposal Thursday to change their monthly meeting schedule, replacing one formal session each month with a community study session.

The district has held two formal sessions each month during the school year since Orange Unified was formed in 1953, according to a spokeswoman.

The study sessions will include a consent agenda of bookkeeping matters to be approved and one or two discussion items for the board to consider.

Having one such session each month should open communication between parents and district officials and promote public involvement in problems or potential policy changes facing the district, Board President Barry Resnick said.

“The community is always asking what about this issue and that issue,” Resnick said. “We get so bogged down in action items that we don’t have time to discuss the longer-term issues.”

The schedule should also keep board members and parents better informed on such controversial issues as the divisive maintenance property tax that the district considered and ultimately defeated last fall, said Trustee John Hurley, who proposed the meeting changes.

“If we discuss something in detail at a work study session, then we remove all of the myths, all of the emotionalism, and all the misstatements,” Hurley said. “Then we can talk about putting those items on the action agenda and nobody can complain about not having enough time to consider it.”