Live Streaming of School Board meetings to be suspended

Many of our readers have been following the live streams of the Menomonie School Board meetings. We've been providing this live stream because we think that schools are important to the public, and because the school board is one of the very few government entities that has been meeting in person rather than virtually since the pandemic started.

I have been personally doing almost all of these meetings, either by recording them or live streaming them. Since I am in several of the categories of people who are considered to be particularly at risk from COVID-19, I have done this with some trepidation, and I've also not felt that it was appropriate for the site to pay someone else to take the risk of attending public meetings. 

After quite a lot of consideration, I have decided to stop doing the school board live stream, at least temporarily. This is a big decision since most of the other media in the area have started to do their own coverage of the board from the live stream we've been providing. 

As with everyone else, I am hopeful that the time will come when we are no longer at a tipping point for healthcare facilities in the area, and the infection rate drops. But we are clearly not there, and at the moment the pandemic is causing many changes in our lifestyles. I hope we can move back to providing this coverage shortly. If the school board moves to doing virtual meetings we will endeavor to provide a stream of the virtual meetings here.