Will Teresa Holmes Listen to ANYONE?

If you attended or watched any of the board meetings in September and this month, you know how they have disintegrated. The problem is with how the meetings are being run.

Is there anyone to whom Teresa Holmes will listen and accept advice?

She surely isn't going to listen to anything I say. She won't listen to Trustees Agostini, Scott or McFadden. It won't do any good to listen to Caution-Parker, McKie or Manning. The superintendent will be very careful about any suggestions he makes. No staff member at Richland 2 would dare to offer advice or suggestions.

If Holmes is to have any hope at all of continuing as board chair and completing her term as chair, which ends on June 30, 2022, she must get help in understanding the effect and impact she is having on board meetings. And she must get some training and coaching in how to be an effective chair of a meeting.

There are consultants available. She should avail herself of them - and at her own expense. It would be wrong for the District to expend any funds to help her improve her ability to serve as board chair.

To whom should she turn?

First step should be a counselor or therapist to help her understand, quickly, that she runs roughshod over people. If a therapist watched portions of the September 14th and October 12th board meetings, he or she would get a clear picture of Holmes in action.

Is Holmes to accept counseling, advice, training?

If not, she should resign as Chair and seriously consider withdrawing from the board, where she is not even a legal member of the board.

If she is willing to accept counseling, advice and training, then first she should take the oath of office (she first became eligible to take the oath on December 4, 2018) and become a legitimate member of the board.

Then the board should hold an election of officers and properly elect a legitimate Board Chair and a legitimate Board Secretary.

If McKie also steps up and takes the oath (she too first became eligible to take it on December 4, 2018), then she will become a legitimate board member and eligible to hold a position as an officer.

The key is whether Holmes is willing to make a 180º turn and change how she interacts with the other board members. Continuing to act as a bully will not work.

If she continuues to put on a Bully hat at meetings, three board members are very likely to walk out of meetings, halting business. "The Three" will tolerate being out-voted, but they won't tolerate a bully.

Does she have any friends she'll listen to? Preachers? Lawyers? Anyone?