Board president Bob Byers is pictured at the school board meeting on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026.

The Lawrence school board president wants to bring public comment back to school board meetings, but – at least right now – is only proposing letting people speak only about specific agenda items being discussed, and not allowing comments via videoconference.

The school board hasn’t had a public comment period for community members to speak at its meetings since December 2025, but in the past it typically allowed the public to speak near the end of the meeting after board members concluded their discussions.

The previous board president, GR Gordon-Ross, hadn’t given the Journal-World a reason why the board chose to stop hearing public comments at meetings last year. But the decision did follow repeated violations of the board’s commenting rules by a few frequent commenters who, among other things, used foul or obscene language, often directed at board members. In February 2025, board member Kelly Jones had raised concerns about the atmosphere surrounding public comment. Following a 30-minute standoff with a commenter who refused to follow the rules, Jones floated the idea of temporarily suspending public comment, as the Journal-World reported.

The board and other governing bodies aren’t required to hear public comment at their meetings, and members of the public have still been able to send comments to the board in writing.

But when Bob Byers was elected as board president last month, he said he would like to explore allowing public comment again during meetings and reevaluating how it works.

On Monday, Byers said he had received many messages from the community about public comment and what it could look like going forward.

While Byers wants public comment to be back on the agenda, he expressed an interest in only allowing it on items actually listed on the agenda – not a separate period at the end of the meeting where general comments about district business could be made, like it was before.

“I value the public’s opinion, specifically when we hit topics on our agenda where we need to really get that extra (input) from the community,” Byers said.

However, Byers said after reviewing the school district’s public participation policy, he thought that it might need to be changed to allow only for public comments pertaining to agenda items, among other potential changes requested by the board. Therefore, he wanted the policy committee to review the existing policy and begin drafting potential changes.

“That’s the realm of the policy committee,” Byers said. “I can set limits, I can say whether or not we have public comment, and what I’ve decided is once it goes through the process, the plan is to bring public comment back.”

“The public comment that I want back immediately, upon all the polices and stuff being worked, is that we will allow public comment on current agenda items only,” Byers said, adding that he wants those comments on agenda items to be given in person, not through video call or remotely.

In the future, Byers said the school board may bring back the public comment period as its own item on the agenda, but for now, he wants to see what the policy committee will bring forward.

“I’m asking the policy committee and the district staff to work out the things that need to be done in order to move forward,” Byers said. “And I’d like to get it started pretty quickly as soon as we can get it through the policy committee.”