If one truth was clear leaving Thursday’s first meeting of the Incline Schools Reflective Task Force, it’s this — the meetings must be much more formal.

There are currently 21 members on the task force, a huge number in itself. While the discussion should be manageable, there should have been far stricter rules for the 30 or so community members who spoke during the meeting.

Their interjections throughout the meeting — allowed by the district’s facilitator — slowed the meeting’s pace to a crawl.

If comment like that is allowed to continue, there is no way the committee can analyze data and make a decision regarding the future of education in Incline within the prescribed time limit.

While it’s great the community showed up in such numbers and wanted to comment in such great detail — there simply isn’t time for it. Committee members must be trusted to take information from their constituents and bring them before the task force.

The Bonanza has repeatedly run their names in its pages, they are accessible to the community and charged with communicating with their respective constituencies on the happenings of the meetings.

Bill Horn called for the committee members to hold meetings separately to gather concerns from the community, and it’s an idea we applaud.

If a community member must comment at the meeting, their words are invited — during the prescribed time for public comment.

For the district to allow comment as they did Thursday would reduce the meetings to a circus. The task force has five more 90-minute meetings before its recommendations are due in May to Superintendent Paul Dugan.

Let’s spend them constructively and get as much as possible done before that date. Because to do otherwise is inefficient and a disservice to the Incline Village community — and the children that will be affected most by the group’s final determination.