Blogs

Does your board have new members? Have you been a board member for a while, but want to brush up on some of the basics? OSBA’s upcoming workshop — “Board member 101: Survival kit for your first 90 days in office” — may be just the ticket.

This two-day workshop focuses on helping board members, particularly those who are new to their positions, to develop into more effective educational leaders. OSBA staff from the divisions of board and management services, legal services, policy, and legislative services are…

As the end of the school year approaches, one of the more popular questions we receive has to do with the salary notice schools provide to their employees. Legally, RC 3319.12 requires boards of education, by the first day of July, to give each teacher who holds a valid contract for the succeeding school year a “notice” of the salary they are to be paid. A similar notice requirement appears in RC 3319.082 for nonteaching school employees. These…

Three . . . two . . . one . . . Happy New Year!  

Happy New Year! At the beginning of every year, the division of legal services receives questions relating to organizational meeting procedures and the administration of the oath of office. Let’s take a moment to review the basics.

RC 3313.14 requires, city, local, exempted village and joint vocational school (JVS) boards to organize within the first 15 days of January. An educational service center (ESC) governing board has until the end of the month to hold its organizational meeting.

The meeting should be called to order by the president pro tem, and opening ceremonies (…

In our final blog post for 2015, we’re taking a look at the last of the most common conflict-of-interest questions OSBA receives on its hotline: board members who hold more than one public office.  Previous weeks have covered scenarios where:

• the individual currently works for the district,
• the individual has a family member working for the school district, and
• …

This month, we’ve been looking at the most common questions OSBA attorneys receive regarding board member conflicts-of-interest.  Those include:

• the individual currently works for the district,
• the individual has a family member working for the school district,
• the individual is employed by a company that has an active contract with the district (discussed below),…

Through the month of December, we’re looking at the most common scenarios in which an incoming board member may have a conflict of interest.  Last week, we discussed individuals currently working and volunteering for the district (you can read that blog entry here).  This week, we’ll take a look at board members that have family members working for the school district.  In the coming weeks, we’ll look at board members that are employed by or own a company that has an active…

Hundreds of new individuals will begin serving on school boards in Ohio next month.  The legal hotline has received several questions about conflicts of interest for incoming members.  (Remember: OSBA attorneys cannot provide a legal analysis of the specifics for a board member, but we can provide legal information to help you determine whether you should speak with board counsel about a potential conflict.)

While it can arise in many contexts, we most commonly receive the question as one of four basic scenarios:

• the individual currently works for the district…

All elected officials or their appropriate designees are required to attend public records training approved by the attorney general (RC 149.43(E)).  The training must be for three hours for each term of office for which the elected official was appointed or elected to the public office (RC 109.43(B)).

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office (OAG) has recently made the training available online.  As an alternative to a live three-hour certification training session, public officials or their designees can take the training online. The training consists of 13 separate YouTube…

‘Tis the season for board transition!  But what happens if your board returns from the holidays in January at less than full capacity?  A vacancy may occur on the board for many reasons, but vacancies typically occur in January as a result of one of two things.  Either a board member has resigned from the board during the middle of his/her term with an effective date of December 31 or the board had more open seats than interested candidates at the most recent election.  In either case, a vacancy will occur on the board as of January 1 and the vacancy should be filled…