SCHOOLS. SCHOOL BOARDS. MEMBERS, MAY ATTEND, AS OBSERVERS, MEETING OF ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOL EMPLOYEES.

January 7, 1980

Honorable Mary A. Marshall
Member, House of Delegates

79-80 298

Your recent letter inquires whether members of the Arlington County School Board acting as individual board members may accept the invitation of a labor organization, to which some employees of the school board belong, to attend the organizational meeting in order to observe and listen to the deliberations of such organization on subjects of wages, hours and working conditions, without taking part in such deliberations.

In Commonwealth v. Arlington County Board, 217 Va. 558, 232 5. E. 2d 30 (1977) the Virginia Supreme Court held that local school boards lacked the legislative authority or power to bargain collectively or to recognize exclusively an employee group as the sole bargaining agent for public employees over the terms and conditions of their employment. It has been well established in previous Opinions and in statements by the present and immediate past Governors of the Commonwealth that facilitating communications between teachers and their employer is a lawful and beneficial purpose and should be a fundamental principle of local government. Communications may take the form of meetings between representatives of the school board and an employee organization, provided that such meetings do not restrict access to the school board by individual employees and that the school board retain final consideration and approval of all terms of employment. See Reports of the Attorney General (1969-1970) at 231; (1974-75) at 22; and (1978-1979) at 222. It is evident that attendance at an employee association's meeting in which individual members of the school board observe the proceedings but do not participate or negotiate terms of employment would not constitute an unauthorized collective bargaining procedure. Accordingly, it is my opinion that individual school board members may attend as observers meetings of an employee organization which is discussing terms of employment.

It should be noted that the attendance of individual board members at meetings can be subject to provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (the "Act") in some circumstances. A meeting of such body whether sitting as an entity or in an informal assemblage where discussions of matters relating to the exercise of the official functions and duties of that body take place, is a meeting subject to the Act. See §2.1-343 of the Code of Virginia (1950), as amended. See, also, Opinion to the Honorable Hunter B. Andrews, Member Senate of Virginia, dated February 18, 1970, found in Report of the Attorney General (1969-1970) at 231; Opinion to the Honorable Donald G. Pendleton, Member, House of Delegates, dated September 30, 1974, found in Report of the Attorney General (1974-1975) at 579; Opinion to the Honorable A. Joseph Canada, Jr., Member, Senate of Virginia, dated November 5, 1975, found in Report of the Attorney General (1975-1976) at 411.

The Act specifically includes an informal meeting of at least three members of the board within its terms. See §2.1-341(a). Excluded are certain gatherings of two or more members of a board which are not prearranged for the purpose of discussing or transacting any business of the board See also, Opinion to the Honorable Bernard G. Barrow, Member, House of Delegates, dated September 28, 1977, found in Report of the Attorney General (1977-1978) at 485.