This petition is a request for future South Madison Community School District Board meetings to be available in a virtual format as well as in-person. Due to the continuing spread of Covid-19, the fact that the School Board is not requiring masks during the meetings, and the majority of in-person attendees do not wear masks or follow social distancing guidelines, providing a virtual option would give fair and equitable access to these public meetings. The Governor has issued an executive order allowing government agencies to conduct meetings virtually during the course of the public health emergency. The executive order allows local governing bodies to use the electronic meeting provisions without having to adopt a policy on electronic meetings first.

Providing the virtual option would be seen as an effort from the Board to remain transparent, increase the public's involvement in important discussions, keep the community informed of current issues in the public school district and encourage a more diverse group of community members to participate and attend these meetings.

Numerous requests have been made via email and in-person to School Board members for a virtual option and no response has been given over several months. There are many incredibly important topics being discussed recently and the duty of the School Board is to represent and listen to the voices of the entire community. Not providing a virtual option to attend is unfairly discriminating against people who do not feel safe attending an in-person meeting during the Covid pandemic. Currently, Madison County is in Level Orange, meaning there is still substantial community spread. The environment in which the meetings are currently held goes against CDC and local health department guidelines for safety during the pandemic. 

We are requesting that from this point forward, South Madison Community School Corporation offers a virtual option for every public meeting. Further, we would like to see this continue to be offered post-pandemic in order to allow greater transparency from the Board and increased involvement of community members who have difficulty attending in-person meetings due to scheduling conflicts, lack of childcare, illness, etc.

There is no legitimate reason for this request to be denied. This can be accomplished at little to no cost to the district and there are no negative impacts of a community being able to be more informed in public matters.