PRINCE EDWARD — County school board members, at their July organizational meeting, voted to hold most of their monthly meetings later in the day in order to accommodate public participation.

The shift from a 1:30 p.m. public session start to 4 p.m. for most regular meetings will move public comment from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

“Some members of the community — and I’ve long heard it — have expressed … because of our starting time, they could not attend,” Board Chairman Russell Dove told The Herald. “So there was discussion …for the board to move to a later time, the four o’clock time for the school board, so at least public participation would be at six if people wanted to attend one of our meetings.”

All regular board meetings will continue to be held the first Wednesday of each month unless the date falls on the first or second of the month. In that case, it will move to the following Wednesday. Ten of the 12 monthly meetings will begin at 3 p.m. with a closed session (the school board is permitted to discuss specific matters such as personnel without the public present, though all votes must be held in open session) with open session commencing at 4 p.m. The board, given the historical length of closed sessions, is expected to return to closed session at the end of open session. Motions resulting from closed session discussions are expected to come at the end of the latter session.

Dove said they want to be responsive to individuals who say they are not able to participate. “And so we tried to make it … without extending it [the meetings] too far into the night .…”

The exceptions will be in September and February, when meetings will start at 1:30 p.m. and public comment time is scheduled for 4. In years past, meetings in those months started at 4 p.m. with public comment time at 6.

Dove said he understands that the 1:30 start time was chosen before he came onto the board so that students could attend during school hours, be recognized and make presentations to the board.

The two meetings that will start at 1:30 can still accommodate that.

The school board had a lengthy discussion on the change and ultimately approved it on a 5-2 vote with Sherry Honeycutt and Dr. Lawrence Varner opposing.

Honeycutt favored consistency in start times, with all of the meetings starting at 3 p.m. She noted there is little difference between 1:30 and 3 p.m. And, while it can still be addressed with scheduling, Honeycutt favors recognition of students and employees early in the meeting, suggesting that those presentations could be held quarterly.

In other organizational news, the school board selected Dove for another term as chairman and, with Lockett District representative and former vice chairwoman Susan Lawman not seeking reappointment to the board, named Leigh District representative Dr. Timothy Corbett vice chairman.

Dove said that he is “just grateful that the other board members still have confidence in me” and that until the time he steps down, he will give it his all.

“Education is our future. I don’t have any kids in the school at this time, but I still got nieces, nephews and friends, you know,” he said.