Fayette County Board of Education has become the county’s first and only tax-levying entity to provide a higher level of accountability by producing a word-by-word accounting of its meetings available to the world.

Audio podcasts of school board meetings are now available and will be archived on-line at www.fcboe.org and at the iTunes store.

“We are excited to be able to offer another level of communication to our stakeholders,” said Public Information Specialist Melinda Berry-Dreisbach. “Many times people are not able to attend our public meetings but they are interested in knowing what really happened. Now they can listen to the meetings and hear for themselves how the meeting evolved.”

 Berry-Dreisbach said audio podcasts of meetings are usually uploaded the next day. An RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed has been set up for the podcasts, allowing subscribers to the feed to receive immediate notification as soon as a new podcast is posted, Berry-Dreisbach said.

The public can sign up for the free feed by going to the school system’s website, www.fcboe.org, and clicking on the feed link in the center of the page under “Channel 24 Headlines.”

Be sure to click on the feed that says “new,” located just under the “board meeting podcast/Channel 24 videocast” link, said Berry-Dreisbach.

Because iTunes reviews each podcast it could take up to two weeks before the subscriber is notified, Berry-Dreishach said, but the feed from the school system’s website will provide immediate notification of a new podcast.

Residents can also sign up for the RSS feed by going to the iTunes store, said Berry-Dreisbach. Those that already have the iTunes store downloaded can type “FCBOE” in the search box and select “FCBOE Board Meeting Podcasts,” she said.

Berry-Dreisbach said visitors to the podcast page will also notice that they can view videos that are currently airing or have aired on the school system’s educational channel, Comcast Channel 24. There is a separate RSS feed for the videos that can be accessed by clicking on the same feed link as the board meeting podcasts.

“This service has been requested for a long time by our stakeholders. Many residents do not have Comcast Cable and a number of our employees live outside of the county. These stakeholders rarely, if ever, get to see the programming that is aired on the channel. Now they will be able to see all videotaped programming. Our next task will be getting the still announcements added to the site so that viewers can see the channel in its entirety,” said Berry-Dreisbach.

Anyone experiencing problems accessing the podcast and videocast link or needs help with singing up for any of the RSS feeds should contact Berry-Dreisbach at 770-460-3535.

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