Representative democracy relies on the informed trust of the citizens. School board members serve their communities at a crucial place, governing large sums of money and the future of the community's children. Without the informed trust of the citizens, this enterprise will fail. Trust may be lost directly, or through inattention to detail. One of the critical places for school boards to work to retain the informed trust of their communities is in the conduct of meetings that are effectively run, meet the requirements of the law and address the reasonable expectations of the citizenry. This paper focuses on the provisions of Washington's Open Public Meeting Act (OPMA), but also addresses other legal requirements, and nonlegal issues surrounding effective and responsive public meetings. This is written exclusively from the perspective of school districts and school boards. It should be kept as a resource to help dispel inaccurate common knowledge and practice, and to increase sophisticated compliance with the law and public trust.