We’ve been down this road before. Years ago, a Johnston County Board of Education moved its monthly meetings from the afternoon to evening to accommodate the public. But the evening meetings drew no more people, and they tended to run well into the night. Eventually, that school board worried that decisions made at midnight might be poor decisions, so it went back to meeting in the afternoon.

The current Board of Education is thinking about moving its meetings from the afternoon to evening. Given the experience of that long-ago board, this group might want to rethink that move. At the very least, it might want to consider late afternoon over early evening. That way it could still do student recognitions without taking kids out of class.

But we would encourage the school board to move the “public comment” portion of its meetings to the top of its agenda. As one member noted, the board often acts on items before it hears from the public. That sends the message that the school board doesn’t want to hear what citizens have to say.

In our experience, citizens trust their elected leaders to make decisions for them. Ours is a republic, after all, not a true democracy. But citizens sometimes want to be heard, and they want to have their say before their representatives vote, not after the fact.

We’ve always thought the Board of Education was wrong to hear from citizens after the fact. Now, some new school board members want to change that practice. They have our support and, we suspect, the support of the people.