After two years with no broadcast of school board meetings,
trustees are still struggling to get the discussions on the air for
the public to learn more about local education issues.
Morgan Hill
After two years with no broadcast of school board meetings, trustees are still struggling to get the discussions on the air for the public to learn more about local education issues.
Conversations began earlier this year with the city to use a Charter Communications access channel to broadcast the meetings, as well as other educational programming.
The city’s agreement with the cable company provides four public access channels to be used for educational or governmental purposes, and while two channels, 17 and 19, have been in use for many years for broadcasting Morgan Hill City Council meetings and other government information, the remaining two have not been utilized.
The videotaping of board meetings is one of the goals the trustees set in July of 2006. Previously two district teachers volunteered their time to videotape every meeting, and the tape was played on Morgan Hill Public Access Channel 19 on the Saturday night after the meeting.
The practice was discontinued after Superintendent Alan Nishino came on board in 2005 because there were no volunteers available, but as a part of their goal to improve communication, the board had hoped to bring back this practice.
Now trustees are waiting resolution with cable provider Charter Communications. According to Tewes, the company is asking for $9,000 in infrastructure costs, but the city does not believe the city or school district should have to pay the costs.
Nishino told members of the City Council/School District Liaison Committee Thursday morning that the district is anxious to move forward with programming for the educational channel. He said the district can perhaps use streaming video for some of the broadcasts, but noted that not everyone would have access to the Internet, so the district would prefer to offer the community both the access channel and a streaming video option.
Board President Peter Mandel told the group that the board would like to get the educational channel on the air.
Craig Watson, spokesman for Charter, said Monday there is no “dispute” with the city, but that he could not contact city officials due to the Veterans’ Day holiday to get more information. He said he covers a five-state area and was not immediately familiar with the Morgan Hill situation.
The Morgan Hill Unified School District, Gavilan College and Media Access Coalition of Central California – were interested in acquiring licenses to use the two channels, so the city requested proposals and presentations from the three.
City staff evaluated the presentations, the audiences of the organizations and the proposed programming and recommended that City Council grant use of the two channels to MHUSD and Gavilan College.
Council members voted in June to approve the staff recommendation.
Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said after the vote that the council’s action will benefit the community.
“This can be a great program for the schools, for everybody,” he said. “The schools have great studios, really state of the art. The thing now is just to wait for Charter to get everything hooked up, which we hear could be 30 to 60 days, but we are encouraging them to move as quickly as possible.”
The school district has been working on developing different ways to incorporate the new channel into the curriculum. A studio at Sobrato High School and facilities at Live Oak High School can be used to produce material for the channel.
