Who works for whom?

In the Richland 2 School District -

Does the superintendent work for the School District? Is he directed by the School Board?

Or does the school board work for him?

The correct answer is easy and very clear.

The superintendent works for the District. The Board tells him what to do (and what not to).

How does it work? If the District directs the superintendent to do something, it will be by Board direction. Somebody on the Board will make a Motion  (or there will be a long silence); somebody else will second the Motion. There may or may not be discussion, and then there will be a vote.

The vote is where you find out who works for whom.

There are seven trustees (well, that's questionable). Four "Yes" votes are needed to approve a Motion.

The way things are happening right now, if the superintendent wants something, he can count on votes from McKie, Holmes, Shadd, and Caution-Parker. Those four control the board.

It won't matter what Manning, Agostini and Elkins-Johnson say or want.

If the Board wants to send the superintendent down the road, it takes five (5) votes. He'd have to shoot someone in New York City, and there probably wouldn't be five votes to fire him even then.

The only allegiance the Board should have is to the taxpayers and voters in the voting boundaries of the Richland 2 School District. Those are the "bosses" the Trustees should have to keep happy.

There is an election coming up on November 3, 2020 for three School Board members. Start doing your homework now.

A more critical election will be in November 2022, when voters have a chance to decide on McKie, Holmes and Caution-Parker. Will McKie have paid her $51,750 fine to the S.C. Ethics Commission by then?

Post & Courier mentions Richland 2

Take a good look at this Post & Courier article about sweetheart deals cooked up in Richland One School District. See the reference to Richland Two at the end of the article.

Then think about the "deal" put in place in January 2019, when the Richland Two School Board approved a 10-page Resolution foisted on them by Administration.

Most of it was bond document boilerplate. Did every one of the Richland Two board members wade through every line in that Resolution? And did they understand what they were approving?

Everything was kosher until you got to the last two sentences in Section 21 on Page 9.

That's where the Board jumped off the coachbox and tossed the reins to the superintendent, giving him authority to direct Burr Forman to associate co-counsel for the purposes of diversity and to have control over bond issues. Control that properly belongs in the hands of the entire Board.

In other words, hire Tameika Isaac Devine, a black female lawyer in a two-person firm in Columbia, whose husband just happens to be on the Richland One school board. With a small firm that lists absolutely NO bond experience on its website.

Bond work is incredibly complex. Burr Forman is competent. It has a large staff to deal with complicated issues. It has diversity. The lead attorney on the Richland 2 bond work is female. No doubt it employs many black attorneys and staff.

The Richland 2 Board should go back and scrap that authority. There is no reason to tell Burr Forman to cough up part of its fees on the superintendent's say-so.