Public comment at Nebraska Board of Education meetings will be capped at two hours unless a majority of the board votes to extend those parameters under a revised policy approved Friday.
The change aims to provide better clarity on the board's public comment rules, which were typically decided on a month-to-month basis, said board member Jacquelyn Morrison of Omaha during Friday's meeting in Lincoln.
Speakers will each be allotted 5 minutes under the revised policy.
The board's policy committee decided to revisit the bylaw governing public comment following a complaint to the Nebraska Attorney General's Office last year that came amid a torrent of backlash over proposed health education standards.
The draft standards, which were criticized for including lessons on gender identity and same-sex families, among others, drew hundreds of speakers during marathon meetings last year.
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The Attorney General's Office eventually offered an opinion, saying the board could essentially develop any public comment policy it wanted as long as it was applied consistently, Morrison said.
People last year drove long distances from across the state to attend meetings not knowing how long public comment would last, board member Lisa Fricke pointed out. The revised policy now sets a standard.
"I felt uncomfortable at board meetings deciding that day how long we were going to allow people to speak," Fricke said. "We needed something consistent."
Kirk Penner, who was sworn in Thursday as the newest member of the board, was critical of the change and questioned whether the board would have allowed more time last year if this policy was in place.
"You hit a hot-button issue, and now we're going to limit public comment. And to me, that's not correct," said Penner, a former member of the Aurora school board appointed by Gov. Pete Ricketts last month to take over the District 5 seat vacated by Patricia Timm of Beatrice.
District 5 includes portions of Southeast Nebraska, including parts of Lancaster County and south Lincoln.
Morrison said the board did vote to extend public comment last year to accommodate speakers, and the ability to extend the time allotted remains unchanged.
Board members also said the revisions make the policy consistent with a revised state statute concerning public participation at open meetings that requires speakers to sign in with their name, address and any organization they represent.
The new rules, too, are more in line with how other similar governing bodies operate, such as the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, said board vice president Robin Stevens.
But Penner raised the issue of parental involvement and ultimately circled back to the health standards.
"Obviously, I don't agree with this policy and my argument would be if you were really listening to the parents of what's going on, those health standards would have never come forward," said Penner, drawing applause from the crowd gathered at the downtown Embassy Suites, where Friday's meeting was held.
Penner was the lone board member to vote against the change.
He said he is adamant about local control and said he planned to introduce a motion at February's meeting to bar the board from adopting health standards, something it is not required to do. The standards would not have been mandatory for districts to adopt.
The state school board also approved simplifying its committee structure, an idea that arose from an ad hoc committee tasked with examining the standards process.
The board narrowed its number of committees from seven to four: executive, budget and finance, planning and evaluation, and rules and regulations.
Morrison said fewer committees allows for more time to get work done and evenly distributes responsibilities among board members.