Board of Education May Meet More Often

The Ventura County Board of Education on Wednesday will consider whether to routinely schedule two meetings a month instead of one.

Trustee Wendy Larner has asked the five-member board to plan to meet twice monthly for at least the next year, a change that she said is necessary for the board to complete all of its work.

The county board oversees 18 schools for troubled youths and special-education students and also helps disseminate information from the state Department of Education to local school districts.

The five trustees have a regularly scheduled meeting at 3 p.m. on the last Monday of every month at the county superintendent of schools office.

But in the past year, board members have become so bogged down with an internal review of their policies that they often have to meet a second time later in the month to catch up on routine business, Larner said.

Yet the second meetings have been held at different days and times, making it difficult for trustees to set their schedules in advance, she said.

“It gets very difficult to plan one’s personal schedule,” she said.

If board members double the number of regularly scheduled meetings for the next year, Larner said, they may be able to catch up enough on their work to return to meeting only once a month.

Board members each receive a stipend of $50 per meeting, with a limit of $200 per trustee per month, she said.

The board meeting Wednesday will be held at 5 p.m. at the James F. Cowan Conference Center, 550 Airport Way, Camarillo Airport.