Public Meeting 1

     I’m going to start off by saying the School Board Recognition meeting was nothing like the public meeting I attended last year about the budget. When I arrived to the meeting I learned I had to pay for meter parking which was a little frustrating because I only had 2 quarters and 5 dimes which got me roughly an hour and twelve minutes.

     I soon as I walked into the lobby I was consumed by a crowd. My initial thought was this is going to be a big mess with no order. I went into the room where the meeting was being held and notice that all of the chairs were reserved for guest receiving awards. I found this very inconvenient because I was forced to stand along with about 50 other patrons. It made me feel that even though this was a public meeting they did not accommodate everyone.

    I found a nice spot near the back in front of a flat screen T.V. where I was able to watch the meeting with better ease. School Board Chair Susan Valdez led the meeting and promptly started at 5:30.  The meeting started out by thanking everyone for coming and congratulating all of the kids for participating and attending.

     For someone, like me, who had to relation to these kids or to the topics it was not very exciting. However, it was nice to see young people being involved in academics and getting recognized by the School Board.

      While I was standing in the back taking notes, I couldn’t help but listen to the chatter of two men who were standing near me. They were cracking jokes about certain awards and not so much making fun of one of the kids but playing jawing about one of the winners. Ironically one of the guys started to leave and told the other guy he had to go up to get recognized for something. I found that quite comical that he was acting like a disgruntle parent who did want to be there but in reality he was there for the same reason the kids were.

     The public meeting was the same throughout the hour and twelve minutes I was there—they announced the award, the kids came up, parents took pictures and they moved on. 

      In the future I’m going to pick a public meeting that I think will be more interesting but all in all it was a good experience.