How to Take Minutes at a School Board Meeting

Taking Minutes

One of the most important and yet continuously overlooked components to any successful school board meeting is the proper recording of minutes. Unlike a legal proceeding, it is not necessary to write down the exact words everyone says. However, take too few details and you will find yourself stalling a week later by dumbly shifting through a stack of papers because you forgot to write down the budget figures. So how can you assure adequate coverage without giving yourself a writer's cramp?

Things You'll Need

• Paper and Pen or Laptop
• Dictation machine

Instructions

1. Write down the names of all members of the meeting. Assign each name a unique abbreviation. You will use these abbreviations to identify who says what during the course of the meeting.

2. Turn on the dictation machine at the start of the meeting. This will be your back-up reference in case you miss any important detail or people begin talking too fast.

3. Record the date and time of the meeting as well as any central topic or agenda of the meeting.

4. Listen closely to what each member says during the meeting. Capture the essence of what a person is saying and phrase it in one sentence. Pay particular attention to any quotes or exact figures and write these down verbatim.

5. Note any change in topic or conclusion of a conversation by leaving space in between sections. This extra space will come in useful when you go back to label the topic or if you have to add in extra details later.

6. Listen to the recording after the meeting has concluded. Write down any extra details you may have missed.

7. Label each section in accordance to the nature of the topic or conversation.

Tips & Warnings

• If there is a syllabus that the meeting will follow, try to take the minutes of the meeting in accordance with that syllabus. It will provide for easy referencing later. In a pinch, you can make a quick dictation machine by calling your voicemail from your cell phone and letting the message run through the meeting. Using different colored pens or fonts can be a helpful way of highlighting important details and figures. Be careful though! Too many colors can become disorienting.