Now that the voters have spoken, hopefully the leaders of the Albert Lea School District see the benefits of engaging the community year-round.

Many supporters of the referendum levy told opponents they should attend more school board meetings. Indeed, they should, but the school board should meet the voters halfway and give its visitors democracy in action.

The school board needs to get rid of the workshop that takes place two hours before the school board meetings. It is there that the school board members tend to debate school issues. Then they come to the actual school board meetings and vote on business with little or no original reactions to matters.

The workshop, though it is open to the public, also leads to speculation of dishonesty and secrecy. What&8217;s the point, people say, if it takes place right before the actual meeting?

Why not drop the workshop and just have longer school board meetings? Why not have that debate at the actual meetings where people are more likely to witness it? Democracy functions best in the light of sunshine. This is not a time to fade into the shadows.

Plenty of school boards for bigger districts don&8217;t have regular workshops &8212; usually only budget workshops and an annual retreat &8212; and as a result they display actual debate at the regular meetings.

After that task is accomplished, the next step the school board should take is finding the means to televise the school board meetings over a public-access cable television channel.

In fact, the district should work closely with the city to make sure the next time the cable-television franchise agreement is up for negotiation that the school district gets its own channel.

On this school channel can be shown board meetings, concerts, sports events, calendar items, plays, videos made in the high school video production class. Talk about engaging the community!

Who would operate the cameras? Students interested in technology.

To be sure, the Albert Lea School District has improved greatly in the past 10 years, making our city a great place to raise a family.

Greater visibility should help the community see the improvements and for that matter see the next round of difficult issues facing schools.

Think of it as a show and tell for the whole school district.