OPINIONS AND PRACTICES OF NEVADA SCHOOL BOARD TRUSTEES CONCERNING THE STATE'S REVISED OPEN MEETING LA

The Problem. The study was designed to discover the opinions of Nevada public school board trustees concerning the state's recently revised open meeting law. Possible relationships as functions of age, sex, occupation, education, years of service on a school board, and enrollment of the school district represented were investigated.;Procedures. The principal means of collecting the data was by questionnaire which had been devised after researching related literature and the open meeting laws of the states, including Nevada, and the federal government. Each trustee of the 17 public school districts was mailed a questionnaire and resulted in a 71 percent rate of usable returns. Frequency data generated by the categories of responses were treated utilizing computerized statistical programs.;Summary of the Findings.;School Board Processes. The general conduct of school board meetings had been modified to conform with the revised law. A majority of trustees were of the opinion that the constraints of the law had not adversely affected the conduct of board business nor did it have a major impact on the decision-making process. However, younger board members and those with fewer years of service on a board did respond more frequently that the law did have a detrimental impact on the conduct of the board's business. College educated trustees also responded more frequently that there had been a perceptible increase in the use of small committees of the board in order to avoid a quorum. Approximately half of the trustees had received some form of training of the revised law. Voluntary comments by the trustees expressed a concern over inconsistent interpretations of the law and a lack of uniformity in applying the law among the various school districts.;Executive Sessions. The frequency of executive sessions had not changed perceptibly since enactment of the revised law. College educated trustees responded more frequently that there was difficulty in avoiding technical violations of the law during executive sessions. Most responded that minutes were kept of executive sessions. However, there was a statistically significant difference in the categories of responses to that point as a function of years of service on a school board.;School Boards and the Public. The trustees' opinions of the public's knowledge of the revised law were uniformly low. Not one responded that the public had considerable knowledge of the law. Public attendance at board meetings had not changed perceptibly. There had been no noticeable difference in the frequency with which board members had been contacted by members of the public. No real change in the degree of public scrutiny of board actions had been perceived. The trustees were of the general opinion that the revised law had exerted little influence on the public awareness of the complex issues in public education or of influencing public appreciation of the capabilities and responsiveness of school boards.;Recommendations. (1) Each trustee should be provided a personal copy of the Revised Open Meeting Law Manual written by the State Attorney General for their perusal and referral. (2) Training in the provisions and requirements of the revised law should be an integral part of orientation training for newly elected or appointed trustees. Such training should be conducted by individuals competent in interpreting the law. (3) An effort should be made to develop uniform interpretations of the law as well as consistency in applying the law among the school districts. (4) Each school board should integrate a public relations program with their local district efforts in order to generate public interest and support.