The Montgomery County School Board plans to spend Friday night and Saturday at the Hotel Roanoke for its annual retreat.

A preliminary agenda suggests the load for the weekend meeting will be light. The board will meet at 6 p.m. for dinner and a discussion on board member self assessments and a year-end review, according to the agenda. After a night in the hotel, the board plans to reconvene at 8:30 a.m. Saturday to talk about comprehensive improvement plans and receive an update on various facilities projects. Additional items may be added, said Lisa Radford, deputy school board clerk.

It’s common for school boards to hold retreats, which are public meetings. However, Frank Barham, executive director of the Virginia School Boards Association, said he suggests that boards have meetings as close to home as possible.

“It’s a public meeting and sometimes when you hold a meeting so far away that the public and the press can’t get there, it creates the perception, true or not, that it’s not open,” he said.

The meeting is estimated to cost the school board about $6,300. That will pay for lodging and food, plus consultant fees for Blacksburg-based Paula Wilder to plan the retreat, Radford said.