We applauded the Mehlville Board of Education last week for its decision to spend up to $76,000 on transportation for Riverview Gardens students attending Mehlville who want to participate in after-school activities.

The Board of Education’s Aug. 22 vote was not unanimous, but all of the board’s discussion regarding this issue was done during an open, public meeting.

Contrast that to the unanimous vote of the state-appointed Special Administrative Board that governs the unaccredited Riverview Gardens School District to select Mehlville as its transportation district. That vote was taken by the board during a July 9 closed session.

By voting in closed session, the public was unable to hear the deliberations of the board — Chairman Lynn Beckwith Jr., Vice Chair Veronica Morrow-Reel and Secretary/Treasurer Mark Tranel — in accepting Superintendent Scott Spurgeon’s recommendation that it select Mehlville.

More recently, the Special Administrative Board voted unanimously in closed session to approve Spurgeon’s recommendation that the district not provide after-school transportation for its students attending Mehlville.

In both cases, the Special Administrative Board cited the “legal” exemption of the state’s Open Meetings and Records Law, or Sunshine Law, as the reason for discussing and voting on the transportation issues in closed session.

That exemption, in short, allows a board to enter a closed session to discuss “legal actions, causes of action or litigation involving a public governmental body and any confidential or privileged communications between a public governmental body or its representatives and its attorneys …”

The Sunshine Law states that its provisions “shall be liberally construed” while the exceptions that permit governmental bodies to meet in closed session shall be “strictly construed.”

The last time we checked, no one was threatening to sue the Riverview Gardens School District. Instead, at least three organizations have threatened Mehlville with legal action over its decision to limit the number of transfer students.

Just because the Special Administrative Board isn’t accountable to parents or taxpayers in either Riverview Gardens or Mehlville, that doesn’t give it the right to thumb its nose at the Sunshine Law. But that’s exactly what it did by voting in closed session to make two decisions that weren’t even remotely student-centered.