William J. Kemble in The Daily Freeman reports that Saugerties school board officials plan to violate the state's Open Meetings law with a "closed-door retreat" Sept. 1. “We’ve had some discussions about gender equity in different positions and ... hiring,” board President Robert Thomann said. “We’re going to have a board retreat on Sept. 1, where we might anticipate that one of the things we’ll be talking about as a board goal is looking at equitable hiring practices either through gender or ethnicity or whatever demographics there are.... That might be a place, even, where we can figure out what we want as a board goal as that relates to district goals and make that superintendent goals and, then, discuss how to get exactly what kind of information are we looking for." But Robert Freeman, the executive director of the Committee on Open Government, says the anytime the board meets to discuss issues, the public is allowed to attend. “If a majority of the board was getting together to talk about board goals, that’s a meeting covered by the Open Meetings Law,” he said. Read the full story in The Daily Freeman.