A lawsuit alleging that members of the Howard County school board violated public records and open-meetings laws went to trial yesterday in Circuit Court, opening with a seven-hour day of failed mediation, legal arguments and some witness testimony.

Lawyers for school critic and former school board candidate Allen R. Dyer and the Howard County Board of Education faced each other before Howard Circuit Judge James B. Dudley, who will decide whether school board members broke the law when they held regularly scheduled closed meetings and conducted official business by e-mail.

School board Chairwoman Jane B. Schuchardt said she could not discuss the day's proceedings, but said that she felt the trial would be a lengthy one.

"I have a feeling it's going to take awhile longer," she said.

Dyer filed his original suit in November 2000 after learning about the board's biweekly 3 p.m. closed meetings that were not listed on the board's published agendas. The school board has since noted the meetings on agendas.

Dyer also complained then to the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board about the closed sessions and also the slow and incomplete way the board was publishing minutes from its meetings, particularly the closed ones.

The compliance board ruled that the board did improperly raise some issues during closed sessions, but said it lacked sufficient information to state a conclusion about the legality of the closed-session discussion.

The board, however, did change some of its practices - including the change to the agenda - in an effort to be more in line with the open-meetings law, school board attorney Mark Blom said.

But Dyer is not satisfied.

The latest version of his suit, filed March 28, says the board still fails to give proper notice of its closed meetings or prepare minutes of its open meetings in a timely fashion. Dyer's suit also complains about e-mail exchanges between board members he says should be discussed instead in a public forum - a perceived misstep by the board Dyer became aware of when researching evidence for the original lawsuit.

"What we have here is a public body that is set to have closed meetings with an occasional open meeting," Dyer said after yesterday's proceedings. "It should be that a public body has open meetings with an occasional closed meeting. With our board, it's pretty much flip-flopped."

Dyer also found, in reviewing e-mail transcripts, that school board members receive a weekly expense stipend of $125, whether each member needs or spends that much.

"It's effectively a hidden wage," Dyer said. "There's a lot of illegal action going on as a result of these closed meetings."

Dyer dismissed former school board Chairwoman Karen B. Campbell from the suit because Campbell has moved out of state. He asked to have current board member Virginia Charles dismissed, but attorneys for the school system disagreed with that idea.

"Virginia Charles has been a voice for more open meetings," Dyer said. "A lonely voice, but ... "