Families Will No Longer Have Access To All School Board Meeting Videos, Superintendent Says
By Kevin Gosztola, Editor
Superintendent Dr. Leah Gauthier said Elmwood Park Community Unit School District 401 will no longer maintain a public video archive of school board meetings.
“We’re going to continue to livestream and record the regular board meetings,” Gauthier said during a board meeting on November 19. “The recorded meetings will be available for viewing until the next regular board meeting.”
Gauthier also indicated that the school district would no longer make presentations and attachments available before board meetings. That includes meetings where votes may occur.
As the Elmwood Park Advocate reported in October, the school district removed all board meeting videos from the district’s YouTube channel.
Nancy Lasselle, the board recording secretary and administrative assistant to the superintendent, was asked why the regular school board meeting on October 15 was taken down. Lasselle replied, “It was posted that night and already removed.”
Upon learning about the removal of board meeting videos, the newsletter submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained the video of the October 15 meeting.
Sarah Korntheuer, a mom of four children in the school district and a 25-year public school teacher, criticized the board’s lack of communication about ICE operations and urged the school district to put together literature and make it clear to parents that students will be safe going to school and coming home from school, and that students “won’t be taken from school”.
Addressing board members, Korntheuer added, “As I look at your names and see Italian, Irish, [and] German names, I can’t help but think what would your relatives think knowing that this is how we’re treating people that make our neighborhoods look more beautiful, more unique—not less.”
Board Vice President Peter Volpe took offense. “I’ve been happily married to a Cuban American for 41 years. Judge me by my last name and assuming what my heritage is really isn’t fair. And I’ll just leave it at that.”
Not long after Volpe made that comment, video of the October 15 meeting disappeared and the school district apparently reconsidered keeping board meeting videos accessible to the public.
Videos of school board meetings are verbatim records, and under the Illinois Open Meetings Act, a school district is not required to maintain such recordings. However, by livestreaming meetings, a school district must disclose such public records if they receive a FOIA request.
A public body may legally destroy a verbatim record after 18 months. Any videos created before May 2024 could be erased, leaving meeting minutes as the primary record of those meetings.
When Gauthier spoke on November 19, she did not provide any information related to any possible decision to destroy board meeting videos.
The Elmwood Park Advocate sent several questions and requested a comment from the superintendent. At the time of publication, the superintendent had not responded.
Gauthier claimed that the removal of videos had something to do with the fact that BoardDocs, the platform that the school district relies on for sharing board meeting agendas, notices, and minutes, is “sunsetting.” It is unclear what this has to do with meetings that are broadcast on YouTube.
During public comment, three residents—two with children enrolled in Elmwood Park schools—objected to the removal of the board meeting videos. They also questioned the new policy for deleting board meeting videos after a month.
Ann Lindsay, a contributing writer to the Elmwood Park Advocate, addressed the board as a mother of a student at John Mills Elementary School.
“I ask, what value does removing or limiting the meeting recordings provide families in the district? How does this decision—to reference the school board’s oath of office—‘foster extensive participation of the community’? The answer is it does not. It is impossible to see that action as anything other than self-serving,” Lindsay declared.
Lindsay argued that the meeting recordings matter because written meeting minutes on the “board’s website sanitize and sterilize public comments, often making them palatable and free of public criticism.”
For example, here’s how the public comments on October 15 were summarized:
It says Korntheur thanked Gauthier and Frank Kuzniewski, the John Mills principal, for their “bravery and compassion.” The minutes entirely omit any mention of the criticism about the board’s lack of communication about ICE operations in Elmwood Park and surrounding areas.
Sara Lindsay, deputy editor of the Elmwood Park Advocate and a mother of a student at John Mills, expressed frustration with the superintendent.
“I wrote several emails to you, Leah, and I never got an explanation why the videos were removed. And even after we heard the explanation this evening, I don’t understand why they’re not up there anyway and why we can only leave one video up until the next video is posted,” she complained.
Jack Bower, who campaigned this year for a position on the village’s library board, asked board members how an update to BoardDocs would require the removal of the YouTube archive. He also asked why board members would oppose keeping a public video archive. But no board member responded.
“I understand that the board is not required to respond to public comments, but you are able to when you choose to and these seem like simple questions to me,” Bower added.
Bower reasoned, “Having access to an archive helps people stay informed and participate meaningfully in the life of the district, and not rely on the social media echo chamber.”
“Many parents in Elmwood Park value a level of transparency beyond what is minimally required by law, and restoring this archive would support that expectation,” Bower concluded.
The Elmwood Park Advocate searched for similar examples of school districts that had removed board meeting videos.
In Norwin, Pennsylvania, all livestreamed recordings of Norwin School Board meetings posted before 2025 disappeared.
As the Norwin Star, a local newspaper, reported in June, school board member Shawna Ilagan asked, “Who made the decision to remove them and when? Because it’s nothing that we voted on, I know that.”
“Norwin Superintendent Natalie McCracken said she did not recall who had made the decision to remove the archived videos,” according to the Norwin Star.
“I know it was discussed, and the board policy last spring said that notations and any audio or video recordings are not the official record, which is identified as the minutes,” McCracken contended.
Unlike this Pennsylvania school district, no school board member in Elmwood Park has publicly spoken about the removal of the videos. Gauthier has also avoided any specific remarks about the reasoning behind the shift away from transparency.
The Knoch School District in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, also removed videos of board meetings in 2023.
One member of the community, Rebecca Boyd, wrote in an op-ed published by the Butler Eagle, “I believe those videos provided a valuable service to our community, and in the name of transparency, I think they should be returned.”
“The public deserves to know what happens in those meetings. Parents, students, teachers, taxpayers and other interested parties should have easy access to videos of all school board meetings.”
Yet aside from a couple similar examples in Pennsylvania, disputes over making school board meeting videos accessible to the public do not appear to be common in the United States. That makes Elmwood Park an outlier.
As long as it is the school district’s policy to not maintain a video archive of school board meetings, the Elmwood Park Advocate will republish regular board meeting videos to ensure that this information remains accessible to community residents.
Once again, I thank the Advocate for their transparent reporting. The Board's commitment to avoiding transparency, accountability and liability at all costs is astounding. But we're watching and parents aren't going to let it stand without a fight.
What an outrage and disappointment. I was warned about Elmwood Park and now I’m seeing it with my own eyes.😱