VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Virginia Beach School Board meetings can last hours, even after midnight sometimes. Often, speakers take up much of the time. And frequently, tensions between some parents and the board are high.
It's seemingly become the norm. Some parents or speakers get so heated that they're called out by the board chair or vice-chair.
"It's completely within your realm to determine that the conduct was done to disrupt the meeting and that that was inappropriate," said Deputy City Attorney for Public Education Kamala Hallgren Lannetti.
This summer, board leadership took it a step further by sending warning letters to two parents.
RELATED: Virginia Beach School Board leaders cracking down on conduct at meetings, issue warnings to parents
"It's a matter of parameters and reaching a certain threshold," said Board Chair Carolyn Rye.
"I'm not in support of that at all," said Board Member Carolyn Weems. "I think it's subjective."
Parent Annie Palumbo received one of the letters. She believes she didn't do anything wrong.
"There are a lot of issues right now, going on in our schools. Parents are very passionate," said Palumbo.
The number of speakers at recent meetings has been in the dozens.
Some board members have floated the idea of reducing speaker time.
"How about a time reduction? From maybe four minutes to three minutes?," 13News Now asked Palumbo. "No. I don't agree with that all," she said.
"We are not trying to limit the speakers," said Board Member Sharon Felton. "We are just trying to be considerate of all the other business that we have to do as a board."
The school board hasn't voted to change anything. Rye tells us their policy committee will review the following:
- Options for speaker time
- Whether to merge agenda & non-agenda item speakers
- Possible cutoff, then continuation at the end of meetings