So you want to see a school board meeting!
Tbh, they're not much fun. But they can be revealing. Here's how to watch or attend.
TVUSD and the Board
The Temecula Valley Unified School District (TVUSD) serves about 28,000 students in the City of Temecula and surrounding Riverside County unincorporated areas. (See more about TVUSD on the district’s website.)
TVUSD’s Governing Board consists of five people elected to serve as Trustees for the school district, by registered voters in five separate trustee areas. (You can find your trustee area on the TVUSD website.)
Trustees serve for a term of four years. The office is non-partisan. Current Trustees as of September 2023 are:
To make your opinions heard, you can email any or all Trustees (not just the one from your area), and you can speak at school board meetings.
School Board meetings
School Board Trustees are public officials, and they must by law conduct the business of the district in front of the public. In California, parliamentary procedure and the Brown Act control how the meeting is run and what the Trustees can and cannot do. For example, meetings must be held within the school district boundaries, and secret ballots are not permitted.
For a five-person Board like ours, the Brown Act states that two Trustees can discuss district business out of the public’s view, but three cannot. If Trustee A talks with Trustee B and either A or B then talks separately about the same thing with Trustee C (or with a third party who then talks with Trustee C), that’s a violation of the Brown Act. The district’s business must be done at their public meetings.
Some business, though—like personnel issues, contract negotiations, lawsuits, and student discipline—can’t be discussed in public for privacy or legal reasons. The Board discusses and votes on those issues in Closed Session and then reports on their actions in Open Session. Everything else is handled in Open Session with the public in attendance.
Anyone can attend. Parents, students, teachers, grandparents, and community members all attend. Even people who have no relationship with our school district can and do attend. We don’t appreciate them, but they have a legal right to be there and even to speak.
Meeting Q&A
Where and when are meetings held?
What will they talk about?
How can I watch the meeting?
How do I attend the meeting in person?
Can I speak at the meeting?
What are the requirements for speaking?
What will the meeting be like?
How long will the meeting last?
If I miss a meeting, how can I find out what happened?
Q: Where and when are meetings held?
A: School Board meetings are usually held in the Conference Center at the TVUSD District Office (DO), located across the street from Temecula Valley High School at 31350 Rancho Vista Road.
Regular meetings are usually held once or twice a month on a Tuesday, typically with Recognitions and Awards at 5:30 p.m. and the business meeting starting at 6:00. The district website has a list of all meetings for 2023 (scroll down this page and look in the right-hand column). At the top of this page is information about the next meeting, a link to its agenda, and how to livestream it. You can also attend in person (see below).
A Special Meeting can be called if necessary. In the past, special meetings were rare; they were called for occasional board workshops or for an emergency. In 2023, however, we’ve had nine special meetings, six of them called by Board President Komrosky.
Q: What will they talk about?
A: The agenda for the next regular meeting is posted on the district’s website 72 hours before the meeting. Meetings are typically held on a Tuesday evening, and the agenda is posted the Friday before. (Exception: If the Board President calls a Special Meeting, the agenda must be posted only 24 hours in advance.)
The agenda lists all items that will be discussed and/or voted on at the meeting. You can read more about an item by clicking the little paperclip icon next to it. You can also open any supporting documents to learn more.
Agenda items are broken into three parts: Consent Calendar, Information & Reports, and Action Items.
The Consent Calendar is a long list of items that are considered to be routine and to require no discussion; they’re all voted on at once. If a Trustee wants to ask questions or an audience member wants to speak about one of them, it is pulled from the Consent Calendar and discussed separately.
Information & Reports are not voted on. They may come back for a vote at a later meeting.
Action Items are things the Board expects to discuss and vote on at this meeting.
Q: How can I watch the meeting?
A: You can watch the meeting online as it is livestreamed, although streaming is not always reliable. The same page that links to the agenda also links to the livestream if a meeting is in progress.
You can watch past meetings through the district’s YouTube channel. Again, there have been a few times when the recording fails for part of the meeting (for example, the September 1, 2023 Special Meeting video is nearly all blank). The meeting minutes (usually available within a couple of weeks) should contain the missing parts, though.
You can also attend meetings in person. See below.
Q: How do I attend the meeting in person?
A: If the agenda includes something controversial, a lot of people may want to attend, and the room holds a limited number of people. So someone on the district’s security staff hands out numbered tickets in advance of the meeting.
You have to be there in person to get a ticket; you cannot get a ticket for someone else. Information for the meeting will state when tickets will be handed out; typically it’s an hour or two before the business meeting starts, sometimes longer. You can go away and come back, but hold onto your ticket. You’re allowed into the meeting room in ticket number order.
If you cannot get into the meeting, you can hear it from outside the room or watch the livestream.
Q: Can I speak at the meeting?
A: Yes. The public is welcome to speak at any meeting, either in Public Comments at the beginning of the meeting or at the time the Board reaches the item on the agenda.
In a Special Meeting you can speak only about an item on the agenda. In Public Comments at a regular meeting you’re not limited to items on the agenda; but be aware that you cannot show support or opposition for any ballot measure or candidate for political office.
In any case, the Board won’t respond to your comments. On rare occasions they might refer you to district staff for help, but by law they cannot discuss or act on anything not already on the agenda.
Q: What are the requirements for speaking?
A: As you walk into the meeting, look for someone at the door handing out forms for speaking. Fill out the form with your name and whether you’re speaking about a specific item on the agenda or making a Public Comment, and then give it back to the person collecting them. If you plan to speak on more than one thing, fill out a separate form for each item.
These forms are numbered. The Board sometimes limits the number of speakers, especially for Public Comments. If they do, the speakers are called in the order of their numbered forms, and higher numbers won’t get to speak. The way to get a low numbered form is to have a low-numbered ticket to get into the meeting, so that you are one of the first ones inside.
You must read your own comments, not someone else’s, and you cannot give anyone else your time slot.
Remember that you are speaking to the Board; do not address the audience.
You can talk for a maximum of 3 minutes, unless the Board limits you to a shorter amount of time due to the number of people who want to speak. (This has happened very frequently since December 2022. Often each speaker is limited to 2 minutes or even 90 seconds, so plan for that.)
A timer is set for each speaker, and when the time is up, the microphone turns off. You’re expected to leave the podium when your time is up.
Q: What will the meeting be like?
A: School board meetings since the CRT ban in December 2022 have typically been filled with angry people on both sides of any issue on the agenda. You’ll notice right away the many Sheriff’s Deputies (paid for by the school district) there to keep everyone safe. (At the two June 2023 meetings, the district also had to hire a private security firm to search all audience members before they were allowed in. That hasn’t happened since.)
Make sure you have your numbered ticket for entry into the meeting. As you enter the room and sit in the audience, you’ll see the dais in front. Until the September 12, 2023, meeting, school district staff sat at the left and the Trustees at the right. (This might seem significant to some of you, but remember that from where they sit, the district staff was on the right and the Trustees on the left. It’s just a matter of perspective. 😊) The Superintendent and the Board President sit next to each other in the middle.
A podium stands at the front middle of the audience area, facing the dais. This is where you stand to speak. A boundary tape separates the audience from the dais; you’re not allowed to cross it.
Wondering what to wear? Clothing for both audience and Board members varies from cutoffs and t-shirts to business attire. District staff wear business clothes.
People wearing t-shirts that say, “Leave our kids alone” are supporters of the Board majority. Many of them come to our meetings from other areas—San Diego, Los Angeles, Glendale, Chino Hills. We wish they would stay home and pay attention to their own communities, but because our meetings are public, they are legally allowed to attend and speak.
Most of the audience will be polite, but some on both sides, we’re sorry to say, will heckle, call names, and act like children. President Komrosky gives anyone who in his opinion disrupts the meeting a yellow card (yep, just like soccer) as a warning. If they don’t stop, he shows them a red card and they are escorted out by security. At the August 9, 2022, meeting he cleared half the room, but legally he’s supposed to give individual warnings.
You may hear the audience snapping their fingers while someone is speaking. It’s a way to agree with the speaker without interrupting them by applause.
Q: How long will the meeting last?
A: Because of all the controversy the Board majority has caused, many people want to speak. Add that to the normal business of a large school district, and meetings tend to run for many hours. Some start at 6:00 p.m. and last until after midnight. If you got your numbered ticket at 4:00, you’ve just spent some eight hours there.
You can leave at any time. Some people leave after Public Comments or after the agenda item they’re concerned about is decided. You can watch the rest of the meeting via livestream or on video later.
Q: If I miss a meeting, how can I find out what happened?
A: All meetings are videotaped and available for you to watch on YouTube, though occasionally parts are missing. The most recent meeting video is posted on the district website.
You can also see the agendas and read the minutes of past meetings.