Locked doors limit access to Gwinnett schools meetings

Attending a Gwinnett County Board of Education workshop can be a challenge. While legal notices advertise the afternoon meetings as public, a set of locked doors limits access to them.

That is a violation of Georgia open meetings laws.

You need a Gwinnett County Public Schools pass key to enter a long hallway where the school board work session room sits with the door open. Getting through the locked doors can be downright frustrating . The double doors leading to the school board workshop room have been locked for months during meeting times.

Gwinnett Schools officials say the locked door is an oversight, not an intentional violation of Georgia laws.

On Tuesday, when parent activist Jennifer Falk came for a board workshop, the hallway doors were shut tight.

“It was locked,” Falk said. “I went to the front desk and said I was there for the meeting. They said the public portion of the meeting starts at 6:30 p.m.”

Falk insisted that the workshop, where the bulk of school business is discussed in detail, is open to the public.

“This is where they talk about the data,” Falk said. She wanted to attend the meeting to hear a discussion on the school resource officer program. “An employee had to let me in. They used their pass key.”

The Open Meetings Act says “the public at all times shall be afforded access to meetings declared open to the public.” Locking doors and otherwise limiting access to meetings is a “direct violation” of the law , said Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendement Foundation.

“While the board meeting room doors are opened on work session days, the hallway doors have been locked because the area is mainly used by employees that have keys to gain entry. A schedule is supposed to remind staff to unlock the doors on workshop days, said Sloan Roach, a spokesperson for Gwinnett Schools.

“They are supposed to be open during the public portion of the board work session,” said “I need to check on that.”