A policy revision passed on first-reading during Thursday's meeting of the Greene County Board of Education could possibly limit public participation in the future selection process for county directors of schools.

However, a spokesman for the Tennessee School Boards Association, which recommended the change, said the revision was meant only to give local school boards more "flexibility" in gathering comments from the public when doing searches for directors of schools.

The revision of County School Board Policy 5.801, which deals with recruitment and selection of the director of schools, substitutes the word "may" for the word "shall" in a paragraph concerning whom the board can invite to take part in the process of selecting directors of schools.

"The board may invite the community, including board employees, to participate in the process of selecting a director of schools, a revised line in the director recruitment and selection policy reads.

The previous policy said the board shall invite the community ... .

The revision also deletes wording in the previous policy that spelled out activities related to the director-selection process in which members of the public could participate.

Deleted from the revised policy is the phrase, referring to the public's role: "by suggesting selection criteria, participating in sessions with and asking questions of the candidates and by attending board interviews with the candidates."

During the Thursday afternoon county school board meeting, board member Rex Hopson, who represents the South Greene area, questioned why the change was being made in the director selection and recruitment policy.

In response, Dr. Joe Parkins, director of county schools, said the changes had been proposed by the Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA).

Parkins said the changes likely were being proposed by the TSBA because the public input actions spelled out in the old policy are not actually required by law.

Joel Moseley, the TSBA's directory of policy and staff attorney, confirmed by telephone from Nashville on Friday that state law does not spell out how public input should be gathered by local school boards.

Moseley said the old policy featured a "very rigid" way of getting comments from the public.

"What we wanted to provide was a very flexible policy," Moseley said. "Since individual boards should know how better to interact with their communities, we wanted them to be able to say this makes sense for our community or this doesn't."

The needs of various local school boards can be very different, Moseley noted. "Sometimes community meetings make sense for a community and sometimes they don't," he said. "We want boards to understand that they have the ability craft their own solutions."

Moseley said the policy change isn't meant to limit public input, only to give local boards more flexibility in gathering public input.

He noted that some school board members across the state had complained to him that after they went to the expense of holding public input-gathering sessions concerning director of schools positions, turnout was poor.

The TSBA assisted the Greene County Board of Education with its last two searches for candidates to fill the director of schools post.

During those searches, the TSBA hosted a series of meetings with the public, school system employees and local elected officials in which comments on the search criteria for selecting a director of schools were sought.