Zoom Meeting Settings
If you are using Zoom Meeting for your board meeting, we recommend the following:
- Registration: Mark as required
- Meeting ID: Select the “Generate Automatically” and do NOT use your Personal Meeting ID.
- Meeting Password: If you are using this meeting to specifically be for an executive session, you may want to require a meeting password to provide even tighter security of who can access the meeting.
- Video: Set to Off
- Audio: Choose Both if you want some people to be able to call into the meeting.
- Meeting Options
- No to “Enable join before host”
- Yes to “Mute participants upon entry”
- Yes to “Enable waiting room”
- Yes to “Breakout Room pre-assign” if you know you are going to have an executive session.
- Alternative Hosts: We recommend there be at least two co-hosts. One to manage participants and the other to share the screen. These can be set at the time of creating the meeting or you can assign individuals as co-hosts when they join the meeting.
See additional details below to help ensure the security of your meeting:
Set a Meeting Password
Setting a strong password for your meeting can prevent unanticipated guests from joining. When scheduling a meeting, under Meeting Options, select Require meeting password, then specify a strong password (make your password at least eight characters long and use at least three of the following types of characters: lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, symbols). Participants will be asked to enter this password in order to join your meeting. If it is a public meeting, you will need to make sure that the password is readily available and accessible to the public.
Enable Waiting Room
The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when participants join your meeting. As the meeting host, you can admit attendees individually, or hold all attendees in the virtual waiting room and admit all when you are ready to begin.
Admitting participants from the Waiting Room into the live session requires an additional step for the host but provides increased control to only allow participants to join the meeting when you specifically admit them. This feature can be enabled on a per- meeting basis when scheduling.
Disable 'Join Before Host'
If you are scheduling a meeting where sensitive information will be discussed and you do not want participants to start the meeting without you, it's best to disable join before host functionality.
If you disable join before host, participants will see a pop-up dialog that says, "Please wait for the host to start this meeting." If you are the host, there is a login button to login and start the meeting as the host.
This feature can be enabled or disabled on a per-meeting basis when scheduling. Visit Join Before Host in the Zoom Help Center for additional information.
Limit Sharing to the Host
This will not be appropriate when multiple participants will need to share and collaborate but this restriction can help prevent intrusive sharing and potential meeting disruptions.
To limit sharing privileges while in your meeting:
- Click the up-arrow next to Share Screen.
- Select Advanced Sharing Options.
- Under Who can share, click Only Host.
Remove a Participant
If you are the host or co-host in a session and notice an unwanted guest has joined or the participant is disruptive to your session, you have the option to remove them in a manner that is consistent with your state’s laws.
1. If the Participants panel is not visible, click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window.
2. Next to the person, you want to remove, click More.
3. From the list that appears, click Remove.
Lock Your Meeting
The Zoom Host Controls allow the host or co-host to lock the meeting once all anticipated participants have joined the meeting. The only time this would likely be something you would do for a school board meeting would be if it was an executive session and you wanted to lock it once all permitted participants joined.
To lock your meeting:
If the Participants panel is not visible, click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window.
At the bottom of the Participants panel, click 'More'.
From the list that appears, click Lock Meeting.
When a meeting is locked, no one else can join the session, regardless of having a meeting password. Neither the host, nor co-host will be alerted if someone attempts to enter a locked meeting, but you can follow steps above to unlock the meeting and allow additional participants in the meeting.
