Members of the public were stopped from speaking at a recent school board meeting if they mentioned an employee's name or criticized interim Superintendent Michael Goar.
Now district officials say they were wrong.
"The understanding became that you couldn't say a name, but that was not right," said the district's attorney Amy Moore.
At Tuesday's meeting, several teachers and staff members signed up to speak out against a recent reorganization of the district's English Language Learning department, including the decision to get rid of the department's director, Jana Hilleren. When a staff member speaking to the board mentioned Hilleren, board chair Jenny Arneson stopped her from continuing.
Another parent was frustrated with the way the district handled turmoil at a contract school that serves a large number of Somali students. The parent specifically said she was shocked by the way Goar had made a decision to take over the school. She called him "unethical and reckless."
Again, Arneson said "you can't talk about people."
Yet, when another parent got up to praise Goar for his decision, that person was not stopped.
Moore told Arneson that there was information that some teachers or staff were going to speak out and "attack" Hilleren in public, and the board cannot allow personal attacks at a public meeting. That led to a miscommunication, Moore said, where Arneson then stopped anyone from speaking for saying a name or mentioning an administrative position.
