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UNION TWP. — Told of an apparent sound glitch in the online streaming of Wednesday’s School Board meeting, Northwest Area Superintendent Joseph Long said the district will be “redoing” part of the meeting that was not heard by those viewing via the web.

The board held a relatively brief work session and regular meeting streamed live on the district YouTube channel, something it’s been doing for months, though the meetings recently shifted from the board members gathering at separated tables in the high school library to sitting at individual tables in the newly renovated auditorium.

A Times Leader reporter tuned into the livestream Wednesday but the sound cut out before the meeting had gone five minutes. Another glitch apparently happened and the board started a second streaming video, but that sound cut out before 2 minutes had passed.

The district posts the meeting videos immediately to YouTube, but when checked both that evening and again Thursday morning, the sound glitches still appeared, even when checked on different browsers and different devices with different internet connections.

The first meeting clearly began as a work session, with the board being told the district has gained a second year agreement with Amazon to provide computer programming lessons to students in Python and Java. While that video lasted nearly 17 minutes, there was no sound for about 11 of them.

The video appeared to show the board moving from work session to regular meeting with those in attendance standing, presumably to say the pledge of allegiance, a few minutes before the video ended.

At the start of the second video, Board President Leigh Bonczewski made some reference to being back and picked up where the meeting had apparently left off, with the board voting on routine items like approval of minutes, the treasurer’s report and payment of bills. The agenda then moved to the superintendent’s report.

Long announced a change in this year’s calendar that will make June 10 and 11 student class days and June 14 an Act 80 day for teachers only, with students not attending. He then mentioned a new “curriculum project” to begin in the upcoming school year, but the sound cut out. The entire second video lasted a bit more than 13 minutes, but more than 11 of them were silent.

Contacted about the issue Thursday, Long initially responded by email: “Thank you for letting us know about sound issues. We are currently investigating and will reschedule meeting if we need to.” By that evening he sent an email saying the meeting would be redone to vote on the actions not audible in the initial videos.

Virtual board meetings have been problematic at times throughout the area since the move to them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One meeting of the Joint Operating Committee of the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center had sound so low at times it was difficult to hear everything that was going on. That problem was pointed out and corrected at the next meeting.

Closer to what happened to Northwest Area, last June a Crestwood School Board meeting that included a vote on a final budget for the 2020-21 school year was being streamed live but the video cut out before the budget vote was made. Notified of the problem, the school board set a special meeting several days later to cast the budget vote a second time. By state law, district’s must pass their final budgets by June 30.

Sound glitch may prompt another meeting at Northwest Area