Local school boards across Connecticut have found a way to violate the spirit of Connecticut’s open-government law — by following the letter of the law. In the process they are giving their public school students an instructive civics lesson: That our responsibilities as citizens in making government don’t end with passing laws. The public has a right and a need to know how its school boards monitor the work of superintendents they hire. An increasing number of school boards are using oral evaluations as a way of sidestepping the FOI Act. For members of school boards, it’s doubly important to serve as role models for the students and teachers on whose behalf they make decisions.