Why isn't Richland 2 Filling Two Vacant Seats?

The Richland 2 School Board is supposed to have seven members. It has five (5).

There is a protocol for filling vacant seats. Richland One filled one after resignation of a board member who was moving out of state. It held a special election.

To become a legitimate board member, one must first be elected. Upon being elected, the candidate becomes "qualified" and becomes a trustee-elect.

The next step is for the trustee-elect to become eligible for the office by filing a Statement of Economic Interests form with the South Carolina Ethics Commission.

ARTICLE 11

Disclosure of Economic Interests

SECTION 8-13-1110. Persons required to file statement of economic interests.

(A) No public official, regardless of compensation, and no public member or public employee as designated in subsection (B) may take the oath of office or enter upon his official responsibilities unless he has filed a statement of economic interests in accordance with the provisions of this chapter with the appropriate supervisory office. If a public official, public member, or public employee referred to in this section has no economic interests to disclose, he shall nevertheless file a statement of inactivity to that effect with the appropriate supervisory office. All disclosure statements are matters of public record open to inspection upon request.

For those certain people who have difficulty reading the "fine print", let me simplify this Section.

(A) No public official, regardless of compensation, and no public member or public employee as designated in subsection (B) may take the oath of office or enter upon his official responsibilities unless he has filed a statement of economic interests in accordance with the provisions of this chapter with the appropriate supervisory office. If a public official, public member, or public employee referred to in this section has no economic interests to disclose, he shall nevertheless file a statement of inactivity to that effect with the appropriate supervisory office. All disclosure statements are matters of public record open to inspection upon request.

Fact: Amelia McKie and Teresa Holmes filed their Statements of Economic Interests forms with the S.C. Ethics Commission on December 4, 2018.

According to Richland 2 School District, McKie and Holmes have not taken the oath of office on or since December 4, 2018.

Therefore, they are not legitimate members of the school board and should not be allowed to participate in board matters, votes, compensation or perks.

They will become legitimate board members as soon as they take the oath - legally. The oath they both took on November 13, 2018 was in violation of S.C. Code of Laws Section 8-13-1110(A).

If they were in court and sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, how would they answer these two questions:

"Did you take the oath of office on November 13, 2018, before you filed your Statement of Economic Interests form?"

"Have you taken the oath of office since you filed your Statement of Economic Interests form on December 4, 2018?"

There are three possible answers: 1. Yes; 2. No; 3. I decline to answer on the grounds that my answer might incriminate me.

The Richland County Elections Commission has been asked whether it retains jurisdiction over an elected position if the candidate never takes the oath of office. Isn't the position still open? Shouldn't an election be held to fill the two open positions on the Richland 2 School Board?

Why Teachers Quit?

A recent article in Newsweek describes a high school in Dallas where somebody got all hot and bothered about a writing assignment given to one class. 

A teacher at W. T. White High School in the Dallas ISD (4505 Ridgeside Drive, Dallas, TX 75244) gave a two-part assignment to the class about a "hero for the modern age". Students could pick one from several men and then were told to write a half-page biography and then to write a full page essay on which one "demonstrates best your concept of a hero". (Newsweek)

The list included César Chávez, George Floyd, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, Kyle Rittenhouse, and Joseph Rosenbaum.

A relative of one student got her panties all twisted over Rittenhouse's name being included and that no women were included on the list. Whom did she want on the list? Patty Hearst?

The school ran for cover, of course, instead of sticking up for the teacher.

Why should the teacher not be criticized? He (or she) was requiring the students to think. To t-h-i-n-k. What a novel concept. First of all, they'd probably just head for Google for their half-page biography. But the next part of the assignment, choosing one from the list to represent their own concept of a hero and then writing a full page about him should require some thinking. 

I wonder whether W. T. White High School offers a debate class or a debate team. 

Teachers today, worried about keeping their jobs and not getting on the wrong side of a principal or superintendent (and then having a face a school board that is stacked against them because it sides with a superintendent in disciplinary or expulsion actions), learn quickly that they'd better not think "outside the box."

Be careful not to challenge the kiddies; they might offend someone. And, for sure, someone - somewhere in that class (or at home or related or maybe not even related) - will stand up and scream. And then the teacher will find out he is up the creek, without a paddle.

W. T. White H.S. Principal: Elena Bates. Email: ELBates@dallasisd.org

Dallas ISD Superintendent: Michael Hinojosa

Submit comments to Dallas ISD at www.dallasisd.org/comments

What "contractual matter" on 9/22/20 Agenda?

The Agenda for the September 22, 2020 Regular Meeting of the school board has been posted on the District's website. You do know where to find it; right? If you don't, ask.

The Executive Session is scheduled for 60 minutes. starting at 4:30PM. Item 2.5 is "Contractual Matter Regarding Transfer of Property". What's this???

It could be as simple as a driveway easement or it could be something significant.

If it is significant, when the time comes for the board to vote on it in Item 8, will the board vote on it as an matter taken up as Item 8.4 without two readings? Or will the board not mention it further on Tuesday and then schedule it as an item for First Reading in a future meeting?

Remember to submit your public comments, for reading to the board, by 1:00PM on Tuesday.

Load 'em up, Parents. Coordinate your efforts. Get the board's attention. And tell the board to show their faces while public comments are being read.

The Livestream open session starts at 5:30PM. 

DHEC 9/18/20 Schools COVID-19 Report

The State newspaper reports today the DHEC numbers for COVID-19 in South Carolina elementary, middle and high schools. See the newspaper article here.

Six Richland 2 schools are included, all with less than five new cases each among students and staff.

For the week this is the result, as reported by The State: "The 532 cases include 352 students and 180 employees": 

The State fails miserably by not putting the numbers in context by including the total number of elementary and secondary students and faculty statewise. A frame of reference is necessary to determine how serious a number like "532" is.

Richland 2 alone has more than 28,000 students and more than 3,000 staff, doesn't it?

Adjusting the numbers from the article in The State

• Catawba Trail Elementary: 1-5 faculty cases
• Forest Lake Elementary: 1-5 faculty cases
• L.B. Nelson Elementary: 1-5 student cases
• Muller Road Middle: 1-5 faculty cases
• Richland Northeast High: 1-5 student cases
• Spring Valley High: 1-5 student cases and 1-5 faculty cases
• Windsor Elementary: 1-5 faculty cases

So Richland 2 could have between new 3-15 student cases and new 5-25 employee cases.

Aren't we in the "mostly survivable" situation, as one parent put it recently in a comment read to the board?

Schools Supt. says, "Back to school for K-5"

South Carolina State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman spoke up this week in support of all the parents who wrote to the Richland 2 School Board last week and asked for in-school education for their young and special-needs children. Check it out in The State here.

I wonder ... is the Richland 2 School Board listening? Is the Richland 2 superintendent listening? Did he get a written message from Supt. Spearman? Let's hear what the School Board has to say, when it meets next on September 22.

At the September 8th Regular Board Meeting the superintendent, at the end of the presentation on Special Education, rambled on and on and on in a prepared, written statement. Didn't anyone get tired of listening to him read his long statement? They know he knows his business. Why didn't they require him to speak without reading his "paper"? Will his description of parents as "calm, confident, positive, courageous" begin showing up on walls through the District? The Richland 2 superintendent will never have to worry about being convicted of being short-winded during a board meeting.

One parent's Letter to the Board set off trustee-elect Teresa Holmes. She didn't like the parent's use of "mostly survivable" and launched into a long commentary that programs should be "survivable for as many of the masses as possible." She said she didn't know how she would feel if it was her child or her child's teacher who didn't survive (because of a decision by the school board to send certain children back to school). Well, of course she knows.

But what, really, is the difference because "mostly survivable" and "survivable for as many of the masses as possible"? 

I was reminded of comments by others who say, "If we can save one child...."

It's a given that schools should be as safe as possible. 

Public Participation - Welcome (or not?)

During the days (nights) of virtual school board meetings, the public cannot directly address the board.

It could, but the District won't allow it. Instead, the public must submit written comments, which are then read by Mrs. Libby Roof to the board during meetings. The sender's email is shown as it is being read, so the audience doesn't get a chance to watch the reactions of the board members.

Would it be better to show the board and watch whether they are paying attention?

When you look around on the District's website for the procedure for submitting such an email, here is what you find when you click on PUBLIC PARTICIPATION, under School Board in the menu.

The part you don't see in the screen-print is this:

"Public Participation for Virtual Board Meetings

"The form Public Participation for Virtual Board Meetings is no longer accepting responses.
Try contacting the owner of the form if you think this is a mistake."

How in the world do you ever figure out who the "owner" of the form is?

Hint: Watch for the announcement of the School Board meeting on the District's homepage by the Friday before a Meeting, and hope there is information posted there about how to submit your written comments before 1:00PM on the day of the Board meeting.

The 1619 Project - is it here?

Is The 1619 Project being taught anywhere in the Richland 2 school district? (Wikipedia is used in the link, in order to avoid the paywall of The New York Times.)

Parents (and Teachers), if you hear of this, will you please circulate what you learn?

One of the best ways is to send an email to the School Board before 1:00PM on the day of a school board meeting. Then your communication will be read to the entire board and, importantly, to the viewing public. 

If you watched the recording of the last school board meeting, you'll know that certain school board had their noses out-of-joint about parent communications. They would prefer you to telephone the superintendent one-on-one, where your communication will be pigeon-holed and never see the light of day. You'll think you are the only one complaining.

It might look to one of them like a "coordinated effort". Well, that's what it is, and that's what gets attention. 

Those one-off phone calls and email messages don't inform anyone else of issues and concerns. Take them to the Board. It's the Board that directs the District, through its oversight of the superintendent.

Right now there is a Board that clearly lines up with and seldom questions anything said or done by the superintendent. Take, for example, his personal desire to hire "100 Premiier Men of Color" onto the staff of Richland 2. This is NOT a Board project. This is not a School District project. This is a personal program of the superintendent and one that, by his own admission, he is not accountable to the board for.

Read that paragraph again. It's a pet project of the superintendent that the Board has not approved or condoned. How much time is he spending on it? How is he shaping or re-shaping the District without Board oversight???