Board of Education

The Westbury Board of Education is the authorized state agency responsible for setting educational policy in the school district. It consists of seven trustees who serve three-year terms.The terms are staggered so that either two or three of the trustees are elected by the district’s voters each spring at the annual election and budget vote.They pay school taxes at the regular rate and receive no salary or other financial compensation. A minimum of four trustees constitutes a quorum and four trustees must vote affirmatively to pass any motion.

All meetings, except executive sessions, are held in public. State law specifies which topics are to be considered in executive session only.Those topics include negotiations, real estate, and personnel. Names of individual students or individual staff members are mentioned only in executive session. Guests who wish to communicate with the Board on any items properly considered executive items should do so by letter.Any guest who speaks about executive topics or uses the names of any student or staff member will be ruled out of order by the presiding officer and will not be permitted to address the Board in public on that subject.

Although this is a meeting of the trustees of the Board of Education, opportunities for guests to speak are provided both at the beginning and the end of each meeting. The Opportunity for Guests at the start of the meeting is limited to 30 minutes unless extended by the presiding officer, and the discussion should be on issues relating to the night’s agenda. At the conclusion of the business portion of the meeting, the Board will entertain discussion on issues other than those pertaining to the agenda. Each speaker should limit his/her presentation to the Board to no longer than three minutes. Members of the audience who have pertinent information relevant to any specific topic under discussion by the Board may be called upon to speak during the meeting by and in the sole discretion of the presiding officer before the trustees vote on that topic. Agenda items may be taken out of order from time to time at the discretion of the presiding officer. All voting will be conducted in public session. Minutes of previous meetings may be obtained at the office of the District Clerk.

The Board of Education convenes one planning meeting and one action meeting each month at the Westbury High School Library.The public is cordially invited to attend these meetings which begin promptly at 7:30 pm. The agenda for each public meeting may be examined at the office of the Superintendent in the Administration Building, 2 Hitchcock Lane, as early as Monday preceding the meeting date.