Over the summer, the school board posted on the district’s Facebook and Instagram pages announcing that they would not be livestreaming their monthly meetings on YouTube anymore. As soon as this information was released, the community was outraged. Members of the community, especially parents, had said that livestreaming meetings were beneficial to them in many ways, including schedules, work, after school activities, etc. 

The Freedom School District community is mostly made up of either a family where both parents work a normal 9-5 job, or families where only one parent works ridiculous hours while the other stays home with their children. So people could not make it to meetings because of multiple different boundaries in their weekday lives. People took it upon themselves to make sure that the school board had known they were upset. From blowing up the school’s Facebook posts, to emailing members of the board, they made sure that they would be heard. Members say that being able to “attend” meetings on their cell phones from wherever they may be was very helpful to stay in the loop of things. 

“I have watched every single live meeting since they started and I have never felt a more sense of knowledge and involvement in what’s happening in our district! It’s great to be able to watch and even go back if you missed a piece of information or wanted to jot down a note. Livestreamed meetings just make sense,” Kyrsta Climo, resident of Freedom Borough, said.  

After the school board had realized that the community was upset with the change, they had started to respond to members of the community. School board members had started to respond saying that meetings would be continued to be livestreamed once school started back up again. Their reasoning for the cancellation was that the technical department was on vacation, so they had nobody to help set things up and to control and monitor them during the meeting. Even after they had said this, community members still wanted the meetings to be live-streamed as soon as possible. People had said that meetings were super important, even over the summer because important information was discussed. Community members can also still feel in the loop and feel as they have a voice to the school district. 

“Meetings being live streamed allows people to feel like they can still have an idea of what is going on even if they can’t attend in person. Personally, I have two young children and I would not want to subject the board to them being there for two hours.  It would be a distraction for them and I would not be able to pay attention to what is being discussed,” Matt Hogue, resident of Freedom Borough, said. 

With school being back in session, and the necessary electronic parts coming back in, the board is looking to resume livestreaming the meetings within the next few weeks.