A Mehlville listening session in 2018.
The Mehlville Board of Education will bring back board listening sessions in the 2021-2022 school year.
At the Board of Education meeting April 29, the board adopted the 2021-2022 board meeting schedule, which included four board listening sessions divided between both semesters.
The board debuted informal listening sessions during the 2016-2017 school year, which gave the public the chance to talk with board members face-to-face about anything once a quarter, outside the traditional public comment period at monthly board meetings.
The dates of the 2021-2022 listening sessions are:
Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021 – Also the annual tax-rate hearing
Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
The Mehlville High School student advisor to the board, Emily Worthmore, suggested advertising the listening sessions to high school students to give students the opportunity to converse with the board, as well as to increase listening session attendance.
“I think that if you were to mention them to high school students too, I think high schoolers would go if they had anything interesting to say because a lot of times students will joke around like, ‘mention this at the board meeting, mention this,’” said Worthmore. “That might be a good opportunity for those students to maybe come and mention something themselves too. So I think if you mention that at the high school level, you’ll get more people to come.”
During the 2019-2020 school year, the listening sessions were put on hold in lieu of “Mehlville Listens,” which used online ThoughtExchange surveys to gather feedback from district residents and parents about the next version of the district’s strategic plan. Listening sessions were conducted that centered around a specific topic as it related to the strategic plan.
In addition to the listening sessions, the board also approved the board meeting dates for 2021-2022:
Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021
Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021 – State of the District
Thursday, Sept. 16, 2021
Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021
Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021
Thursday, Dec. 16, 2021
Thursday, Jan 20, 2022
Thursday, Feb. 3, 2022
Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Thursday, April 14, 2022 – Reorganization meeting
Thursday, April 28, 2022
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Thursday, June 23, 2022
A meeting was scheduled for July 15, 2021 but was nixed in place of a board workshop sometime later in July.