The 3-2 vote means that stakeholders in far-flung areas of the county -- or even those in Bakersfield who are unable to attend meetings -- will be able to access archived footage of the meetings at their convenience.
"I whole-heartedly support this item and I hope we adopt it," trustee Jeff Flores said before the vote.
He said taking such action would be an example of good governance, showing parents, students, district employees and county residents that the district's public business is truly open to the public.
The idea was not met with open arms by the board last year after Flores raised the issue in March. However, Flores convinced board members to say yes to live-streaming their monthly board meetings on YouTube, something of a half-measure as those meetings were not archived.
Trustee Mike Williams led the charge against Flores' measure, arguing that such easy access may have the opposite of its intended effect by allowing the public to disengage by not attending meetings.
He noted that during the period that non-archived streaming video was available, the number of viewers was often paltry, as low as nine during some meetings.
"It's the (board) decisions we're recording," he said. "Not the drama, not the antics."
Williams has also said he's concerned that trustees with political aspirations beyond KHSD could use the webcasts as a platform for campaigning.
Monday's decision brings the 37,000-student district in line with practices long ago adopted by the Kern County Board of Supervisors, the Bakersfield City Council and Kern Community College District, which all televise their meetings and offer user-friendly archives for viewing days, weeks or even years after a meeting is held.
No one during public comment spoke out against improving access. But two members of the public spoke out in favor of the new system, including retired educator Aaron Steenbergen.
"KHSD is almost twice the size of the state of Delaware," he said.
With video archiving, even those who live great distances from the district office, he said, can "still see the school board in action."
Michael Turnipseed, executive director of the Kern County Taxpayers Association, argued in a letter to the KHSD Board of Trustees that televising and archiving meetings improves communication and transparency.
"This will assist with a clearer record of proceedings, the chance for parents to view, as well as fostering good government in general," Turnipseed said.
The board gave staff a "reasonable" amount of time to line up the technology and make sure everything was in order before beginning the archiving process.
©2017 The Bakersfield Californian (Bakersfield, Calif.), distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
