A “non-meeting,” according to Ms Moyher, offers boards the opportunity to privately discuss negotiations, collective bargaining strategy, and information related to such negotiations that falls outside the provisions of Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) for executive sessions.

“Which means that there is no specific exception in the Freedom of Information law that allows for a public agency to go into executive session to discuss that type of discussion,” Ms Moyher said.

Since the topics are not covered, and it is not required for the discussions occur in a public meeting, a board can go into a “non-meeting.”

“And basically what that means is anything as far as strategy and negotiations related to collective bargaining can take place in this non-meeting,” said Ms Moyher. “You also do not have to subscribe to any of the posting laws, the agenda laws. The normal laws that you would have to follow under the Freedom of Information Act requirements don’t apply to the non-meeting rule. They can take place before any Board of Education meeting, after any Board of Education meeting, and that is basically all that is said about the non-meeting.”

Non-meetings are similar to executive sessions, already held regularly by boards. Executive sessions, which can be held to discuss upcoming collective bargaining negotiations and strategies, require public posting and exempt members of the public from attending under the FOIA, according to information given out by Ms Moyher during the school board meeting. Non-meetings require no public notification or agendas.

Information that can be discussed in a non-meeting include topics from ongoing collective bargaining meetings, like the teacher contract negotiations.

School board Chair Elaine McClure asked Ms Moyher if non-meetings are considered confidential, like an executive session.

Ms Moyher said, practically speaking, non-meetings are not always confidential, but did add later that non-fair labor practice issues could apply from information learned during and shared outside of a non-meeting.

“There is the very limited information on non-meetings,” said Ms Moyher, “and the rest of it really is out there for interpretation.”

Ms Moyher also spoke regarding the number of observers allowed to participate in contract negotiations is normally decided by a board’s chair, and is open to local interpretation.

“We would typically advice on a smaller committee,” said Ms Moyher, and added that it is prudent to decide on the number of people who will be brought in on confidential information. Last month school board member Kathryn Fetchick requested to be added to the negotiating team.

She said the same for adding more observers from another board to the negotiations, as requested publicly by the Board of Finance for the teacher negotiation contract last month.

“There is nothing to say no, you can’t do it,” said Ms Moyher, “but I can see where it would get tricky.”

During the meeting Ms McClure also asked Ms Moyher if the negotiating parties agreed to consider all information from negotiations confidential, then would non-meetings need to be held to discuss any and all information.

Ms Moyher said if any topics came up that could be in question, the CABE offices and FOI lawyers can be reached for help.

“Believe me,” she said. “You are not the first board to have to deal with it.”