The Cumberland County School Board will change the way the board transcribes meetings going forward.
School Board Chair Chris King said the school system’s secretary is having to transcribe meetings word-for-word. King said the proposal was changing the process to generalized minutes. King said word-for-word transcription is time-consuming.
“It’s a lot of pages and I think we had one meeting that was 94 pages,” King said. “Instead of minutes it becomes hours or days and we are taking time away from our secretary and what she has to do to get that done.”
The board would still use word-for-word transcription if video and audio recordings of the meeting fail. Board Member Shannon Stout said she was for freeing up some time for the secretary.
“Previously we weren’t always recording with video,” Stout said. “So now that we are doing that, as long as that is working then if we can free up some time it’s not necessary.”
Board Member Jon Matthews asked if as long as the board has video recordings would it fulfill the state requirements for meeting minutes. Stout said the state will not use video for meeting minutes.
“The state will always go to written so you always want to keep that in mind and they have told us that,” Stout said. “So whatever is in written is what they are gonna go by so if there is any liability issues or anything where they have to go back to what has discussed in a meeting they are gonna go back to the written.”
Board Member Scott VanWinkle said the board can archive audio of the meetings and if a word-for-word transcription is needed the board could go back into the archives and transcribe the meeting audio.
