Other school districts have done the same time change. Having attended dozens of 7:00PM school board meetings in multiple MI districts over 15 years, there were often meetings where no teachers were present. The district superintendent and treasurer were almost always attendance. District purchasing personnel, heads of transportation, facility directors, athletic directors and teachers were only there when there was a scheduled agenda item that required their input or they wanted to address the board about a specific issue. The 6:00 PM start time combined with limiting time for public comments/questions and sometimes requiring residents to submit topics up to 4 days before a meeting to get on the agenda is a convenient (and legal) way eliminate attendees and put meetings on the express lane. When you agree to be a district superintendent or district treasurer, those once a month public meetings are part of job and until recently the meetings have always been at 7:00 PM. If you live in the Wayland Union District but work in Allegan, Metro GR or Kalamazoo, and get out of work at 4:30 or 5:00 it’s difficult to get to a 6:00 PM meeting. Once you navigate 131 traffic there may not be time stop at home for a quick dinner or maybe change your clothes and be on time for the school board meeting. I’ve been told there township boards, village and city councils who would like to have fewer attendees (and reporters) to get things done without any citizen oversight. It’s a lot tougher to roll back a policy once it’s been approved with little or no public input or opposition. It appears the school boards have taken note. And so it goes.