SALISBURY, Md. - The Wicomico County Board of Education's new public comments protocol limits the number of people who can speak at a board meeting to just 10.
Those individuals must pre-register at least 24 hours before the meeting.
If there are more than 10 people, the board says it will select speakers at random.
Board Chairman Gene Malone says the policy was implemented to keep Board meetings moving along.
"It was never intended to limit public comment. It was intended to keep it on line, keep it going so our meetings would flow in a good way," he said.
But parents like Eden Hade are not happy with the change.
"When parents have a concern, they should have a platform to be able to voice that concern," she said.
Malone says the policy change was first considered in April, months before the racist video of Board member Tonya Laird Lewis' son was posted.
"That's just not why we did it, we've been talking about this for some time and in fact we didn't have a public comment policy until now," he said.
Other Boards of Education on Maryland's Lower Shore do not have such restrictive measures in place on public comment.
In Dorchester County, comment is limited to 20 speakers but they are selected in the order they registered.
In Somerset County, the first 10 speakers who signed up can speak for a maximum of 3 minutes.
In Worcester County, speakers can address issues during the public comment section for 1 to 2 minutes.
Malone says the Board is not legally required to provide public comment, but he views it as an important part of the process.
Hade says it is not just important, it is vital.
"Public comment is absolutely not a courtesy, it is something that has been asked for and granted over the past two years," she said.
Malone says the Board regularly holds committee meetings to discuss policies like this one.
He says the Board listens to public concerns about policies and is willing to take those concerns into consideration.
