Jeff Bergosh Blog: "School Board Live"-Call-in Show?

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I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :

Saturday, April 10, 2010

"School Board Live"-Call-in Show?

An issue that I am hearing from many constituents as I walk door-to-door in the neighborhoods of District 1 is that the people feel "disconnected" from the school system and their elected representatives on the School Board.

I have heard this many times before, and there may be a partial solution available.

Now that The School district has time allotted on Cox Channel 98 (the government channel), I am proposing that the school Board do a once monthly "School Board Live" call-in talk/discussion show.

I feel we could serve two purposes with this type of show-we could make this an additional opportunity for board members to discuss a variety of issues in the sunshine-while at the same time allowing for direct interaction with the public that we serve.

I would suggest that someone from the district moderate the show, perhaps Debbie King, and I would envision that the show would be 2 hours once monthly. I'd like to see if it could be streamed on our web site and also broadcast on one of the local AM Channels (perhaps WUWF?) I think a perfect time for the show would be 5-7PM on the Thursday we do our once monthly Board discussion workshop. Who knows, perhaps we could do both simultaneously?

While this sort of a show might only attract a limited number of viewers/callers, and might amount to nothing more than the cure for insomnia--I'd like to see if it would be something my fellow board members would be interested in.

I have put this subject on the agenda for discussion by the board at our regular monthly board discussion workshop scheduled for This Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 3PM at the McDaniel Building downtown.