Leechburg Area School Board could be holding fewer public meetings if a test run over the next few months works out.

Instead of holding the agenda-setting and voting meetings on different days, the board will experiment with holding both on the same night.

“We talked to (Superintendent David) Keibler before the meeting, and things have been going very smoothly,” board President Ashley Coudriet said. “The timing of going to one meeting because things are so smooth may work better and may be more efficient just because of the way things that come through require approval.”

The agenda-setting meeting is a session meant for more in-depth discussions of what will be voted on.

On average, both meetings last less than an hour, and board members Andrew Pallus, Anthony Townsend and Joseph Lepish were for the “discuss and take action” approach that the single meetings would encourage.

“Personally, I’m okay with it,” Pallus said. “I think if we have one meeting a month, it will suffice. If it doesn’t, and it seems like we need a second meeting, we can just call a second meeting and advertise it like we normally would.”

Both meetings being hosted in one night isn’t uncommon for school boards or municipal governments in the area. Plum School Board members meet in the same format during the summer months.

The New Kensington-Arnold School Board only meets once a month with separate committees meeting publicly as needed.

If Leechburg Area decides to host both meetings on the same night, they will be matching Leechburg Council, Brackenridge Council and other government entities that have gone to the one-meeting-per-month format.

“If other districts are doing it, I think that’s how we should do it,” Townsend said.

Board member Melanie Knight had reservations about changing to one night a month. She recalled, during her time on the board, when voting items were “quite often” added to the agenda after the agenda-setting meetings. She said both meetings happening on one night could cause that to happen more often.

“That, I do not appreciate,” Knight said. “I do want to have time to research anything that I’m voting on, or I will not vote. I may be outvoted, but I’m not going to (vote), and I want to make sure everybody knows that.”

There were five items added to the voting agenda at the board’s most recent meeting Wednesday. Knight said she doesn’t want the condensed meetings to cause board members to vote on something they haven’t had time to research.

District Solicitor Gary Matta said the law regarding editing voting agendas has changed in the past year or so. Previously, a board member could add an agenda item in the middle of a meeting, Matta said.

“There are only certain reasons you can add agenda items by law,” Matta said. “For normal things, we should not be amending the agenda after it’s set.”

Knight said she did not want to be pushed into things she doesn’t have time to research.

“That won’t happen,” Lapish said. “It can’t. It legally cannot happen.”

Coudriet said the board could do single-night meetings for a three-month trial run. Once December comes, the board will need to set the meeting calendar and will decide what to do permanently. The next school board meeting is scheduled for Sept. 11 in the high school library.

“We’re talking about three meetings between now and the end of the year,” Coudriet said.

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