Board Meeting Minutes and FOIA

This week's speaker at the Special Called Board Meeting on November 19, 2019 commented on requirements for Meeting Minutes. The speaker was retired attorney Helen McFadden.

The five minimum things that must be in Minutes are (See 21:40 on the YouTube recording):

1. Date and Place
2. Who is present and who is absent
3. Substance of all matters proposed, discussed, or decided
4. Recording the vote
5. Any other information that is asked to be included by a member. "A member of the Board has an absolute right to get a reasonable amount of information included in the record and must put into the record in writing any recusal under Title VIII,: she said.

Ms. McFadden watched 6-8 hours of meetings and has never seen any member recuse himself. She assumed they are doing that. (They aren't, but perhaps no situation has arisen that would require it.)

Recently I suggested to the Board that a statement be included in the Minutes about the superintendent's cancellation of employees' right to carry a firearm at work on school grounds. I had read the Minutes after the Agenda was published and before the Board approved the Minutes, but no member of the Board felt included to request that his statement be included in the Minutes.

When you read the Minutes of a meeting, it is very difficult to know what took 1½-3 hours in a meeting. District Meetings could be much more complete.

RECUSAL

At 1:08:27 on the recording Ms. McFadden pointed out that Richland 2 does not have a Board Policy on prejudice or bias, which is applicable to administrative hearings. She mentioned racial prejudice, religious prejudice, gender-based prejudice for matters of prejudice and bias.

Prejudice and bias are reasons for a board member to recuse himself or herself.

Her comment caused me to wonder whether at least three board members might have to recuse themselves from certain votes in the future, because they have spoken so extensively, persuasively and often on behalf of the District's black students. Could their attention to this one segment of the District's student body be considered prejudice or bias?

Ms. McFadden will be invited back to present a second part of her overall presentation. Hopefully, the District will give the public more than the 24 hours' notice of this special meeting that she mentioned earlier in her presentation, when she addressed the requirements of South Carolina state law.

Dec. 3, 2019 - NOTE: Change of Location

The Special Called Board Meeting for Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019 will be held at Jackson Creek Elementary School, not at R2i2. Jackson Creek Elementary is located at 7150 Trenholm Road Extension.

Please note this change in location for a School Board meeting.

The starting time (from the November 19 District announcement) will be 5:30PM. This may be the starting time of an Executive Session, followed by the open, public session.

Check the Agenda, which will be available on the District's website on about November 27, for the starting time of the public session and also to confirm the location. Agendas are normally published on the Thursday before a Tuesday Board meeting. Since that Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, the Agenda may be available one day early.

Typically, Special Called Board Meetings do not allow Public Participation.

Perhaps the District would be willing to explain to parents of the students to be affected by this change -

1. why this board meeting is a Special Called Meeting, rather than a Regular Meeting
2. why it is at Jackson Creek, instead of at R2i2 or a closer school
3. why it is scheduled for 5:30PM, which likely eliminates attendance by many parents, who might be commuting home from work, caring for children, or feeding them dinner
4. why this is being rushed through

Discipline Update

The Discipline Update at last night's Special-Called Board Meeting was fascinating. This portion of the November 19, 2019 meeting begins at 1:10:40 on the YouTube recording's counter.

Why wasn't the room packed with parents, especially parents concerned about a perceived disparity in discipline among one portion of the student body.

One reason that parents weren't there is they may not have known about the meeting. At the end of last week's Regular Meeting, Supt. Davis announced that there would be a Special Called Board Meeting on December 3, 2019. He did not mention any Special Called Board Meeting for November 19.

Surely, the November 19 meeting was in the works and planned. And scheduled. I learned of it yesterday morning from a Facebook announcement.

What does Mr. Robert have to say about Special Meetings?

"The reason for special meetings is to deal with important matters that may arise between regular meetings and that urgently require action by the society before the next regular meeting." (Robert, Henry. Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 10th Edition. New York. Perseus Publishing, HarperCollins Publishers. 2000. p.89)

There was an analyst present who explained the first set of statistics. Unfortunately, he was not clearly introduced by name. Staff then presented some slides.

Hopefully, those slides will be included in the video-recording of the meeting. I recommend that you view and study them.

For example, a comparison was made of disciplinary hearings scheduled during the first quarter of this school year and last.
Q1 2018-2019 99 Hearings
Q1 2019-2020 157 Hearings
This is a 159% increase.

And this slide:
Number of Instances of Expulsions, first quarter last year compared to this year.
Q1 2018-2019 5
Q1 2019-2020 3

Trustee Shadd noticed this and asked how there could be so many more hearings and, yet, fewer expulsions. Part of the answer, in my opinion, is that Q1 2019-2020 is not over yet.

But does the number of Hearings shock you?

Be sure to look at the pie-charts that were part of the presentation. They showed, by percentage, the number of offenses by Disciplinary Level (there are three Levels: I, II and III.) Pay particular attention to the  Levels of Disciplinary Offenses between Elementary, Middle and High School students. These should be on the YouTube and District recordings of the November 19, 2019 Special Meeting.

Read here soon for a discussion of the Disciplinary Levels, as found the Board Policies.

Robert's Rules rule

Last night's special-called board meeting included two excellent presentations. One was on Robert's Rules of Order and the other was an update on Discipline. I'll separate my comments.

The invited speaker on Robert's Rules of Order was Helen McFadden. She is a retired attorney with years of experience in the world of Robert's Rules.

As it happened, my library Hold on Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR), 10th edition, became available, and I picked it up on the way into the meeting.

Hopefully, Ms. McFadden's remarks were recorded and will be available on YouTube and on the District's website later this week.

Toward the end of her presentation, on a slide titled "Other Issues" was a bullet-point that read, "Ability to hear and be heard". That point was not discussed, and I wondered whether it applied to each board member (or member of a public body) or if it meant the audience.

Beginning remarks by Board Chair Manning and Supt. Davis were loud and clear. They got up close to their microphones and spoke into them, causing their voices to be amplified and audible throughout the room. They forgot to ask Ms. McFadden to do likewise at her microphone, and the few in the audience (four, plus a second speaker) seated behind her could be seen on the laptops and phones during portions of her remarks. Was that because they could not hear her?

One topic she did cover was the Quorum for a meeting.

When the meeting started, there were six at the head table, plus Supt. Davis. Trustee Elkins-Johnson was absent. But you wouldn't have known it, because no roll call was taken.

Before the meeting began, I had looked up Roll Call in RONR to learn what Mr. Robert had to say about it. It's found under Optional Headings, and it apparently is not required. If Roll Call is taken, its place in the Agenda would be at the end of opening ceremonies. The board could place it elsewhere. The logical place, in my opinion, would be right after the meeting is called to order.

Why would it have been important last night?

There are seven positions as Board members. With the ongoing controversy about the legitimacy of two elected persons, this could mean that, to have a quorum, all five of the legal members would have to be in attendance. Without Trustee Elkins-Johnson last night, there was not a quorum. Trustees-elect McKie and Holmes are not yet legal, official members of the Board, because they have not taken the oath of office since filing their Statements of Economic Interest with the South Carolina Ethics Commission since December 4, 2018. As soon as they do take the oath of office, they will be legal school board members.

But they were there and seated, and the District considers them as members. So six were present; a quorum is five.

At 6:43PM Amelia McKie quietly left the meeting. This left five present - exactly a quorum.

Then, at 7:41PM Teresa Holmes left the meeting. This left four members attending - less than a quorum.

What would Ms. McFadden have counseled the Board to do at that time? Should there have been a statement by the Board Chair that the official Special-Called Board Meeting was over, because a quorum was no longer present? Should that change in quorum-status have been recognized? No votes were scheduled. Can the Board receive information in unofficial session?

This is where a Roll Call is important. A formal acknowledgement of official members coming and going. It can be done with a simple statement to the public.

When it was time to close the meeting after the Discipline Update, a Motion to Adjourn was made, seconded and voted upon. Except the Board's vote is ineffective, because there was no quorum.

If Ms. McFadden returns for further discussion of Robert's Rules of Order, perhaps she will clarify what to do when a quorum is no longer present. Does the Board have to sit there for a week until the next meeting?

Special Called Board Meeting - TODAY

At last week's Regular Board Meeting Supt. Davis announced a Special Called Board Meeting for December 3, 2019.

Today I read a Facebook message about a Special Called Board Meeting for TODAY.

I wondered immediately whether it might concern school safety issues (it doesn't), in view of last week's threatened shooting involving Ridge View High School. There was an article in The State but never any follow-up.

The Board will convene at 5:00PM and go right into Executive Session. Two matters will get their attention. 1. Contractual Matter Regarding Regarding Energy Management Performance Contract and 2. Litigation Update

The public portion of today's Special Called Board Meeting is scheduled to begin at 6:00PM.

No Public Participation Segment is planned.

"New Business - No Action Requested" will include two topics: Parliamentary Procedure and Discipline Update.

My reservation for Robert's Rules of Order is ready for pick-up, so I'll grab it on the way into the meeting. I wonder whether my harping on the need for a Parliamentarian has done some good.

Becoming a Premier Board

How can the Richland 2 School Board become the "premier" board that the superintendent and some of the members talk about from time to time?

Some that come to my mind are:

* Require that Amelia McKie and Teresa Holmes take the oath of office, now that they are eligible to do so, and become legitimate members of the school board. The Board has operated with only five legal members since November 6, 2018.

* Control the duration of semi-monthly meetings better, so that they do not exceed 90 minutes. Set time limits for the Moment of Inspiration, Recognition, for school focus and for staff presentations.

* Educate board members to speak clearly, loudly enough, and with purpose to their remarks. Eliminate slow, rambling remarks.

* Coach board members to eliminate grand-standing. Students in elementary school might be called "children"; middle and high schools have "students".

* Coach board members to cease usurping the authority of the Chair with lengthy expressions of appreciation to staff and others. Brief thanks to specific personnel are fine, but it's not necessary to name everyone in the room. The Board Chair should be the one to express appreciation to teachers and staff as a group, unless he designates it. Most staff members attending are required or expected to be there as part of their jobs, and their pay includes their attendance.

* The audience or staff doesn't need to be blessed for attending. Save that for church or personal conversation.

* Board members should speak only for themselves when expressing positions or opinions. For one to say that she speaks for all Board members is a statement easily suspected as not true. By keeping remarks brief and specific, there will be less chance for embarrassing mistakes.

Do you have suggestionsfor the Board? Post them in comments and email them to the Board Chair, James Manning, at jamesmanning@richland2.org

Change in GBEB increases risk to students, staff

When the School Board tinkered with Board Policy GBEB for three meetings and finally settled the matter (temporarily, let's hope) on October 29, 2019, it unwittingly increased risks for students and employees.

How did that happen?

In October Trustee Elkins-Johnson had said that she received an anonymous letter that informed her of two Richland 2 employees who were carrying firearms at work.

On September 24 I had addressed the Board after spotting a man in civilian clothing in the board room who was carrying a concealed semi-automatic pistol in a holster under his sweatshirt. It turned out he was the Assistant Manager of the Emergency Services Department of Richland Two.

The Superintendent knew he was armed, because he was authorized to carry. But apparently not one Board member knew it.

Instead of taking ownership of the decision to authorize the two Emergency Services Department employees to carry, the Board now forbids any employee to carry.

What never was spoken of was the protection provided to students and staff by these two employees, should they interrupt an incident when someone was threatening harm to someone else on school grounds. As civilians, the two employees are not Security and they are not the police. They could lawfully use their firearms only in self-defense or to defend another person.

Several members of the board, including the two trustees-elect who have never become legal members of the board, almost go into shock at the mention of "firearm" or "gun". I suspect that none of them has ever had a gun pointed at them or has had to defend someone else.

I have two questions for each board member:

1. If you were a teacher and were barricaded in your classroom with 20 students and some madman with a gun was trying to break down your classroom door, wouldn't you wish you had a gun and knew how to use it?

2. If you are a parent, if a madman with a gun is trying to break into your child's classroom, won't you wish your teacher has a gun and knows how to use it?

Recommended reading:
Why Meadow Died, by Andrew Pollack
From Luby's to the Legislature, by Suzanna Gratia Hupp (don't miss the last 3-4 pages)