9/28/21 Board Meeting - could you hear?

Before last night's board meeting began, I asked if the volume in the room could be increased, as trustees cannot be heard in the meeting room. Volume is very good on the Live recording, but it's low in the room.

I was offered a hearing-assistance device. I'll acknowledge some degree of hearing loss. I'm growing accustomed to "soft" Southern voices but, when they speak clearly and don't mumble, I hear and understand them.

As I looked around the room during the meeting, I noticed that quite a few others in the audience were showing signs that they couldn't hear, either. You know, shaking their heads; leaning their heads toward the speakers; holding hands up to ears. Or just ignoring the speaker.

How simple it would be to instruct the sound engineer to increase the volume in the room.

Or instruct the trustees to remove their masks and speak directly into the microphones.

Or for the trustees to pull the microphones closer to their mouths.

A-ha! This morning I began listening to the replay of last night's meeting. When the session reconvened at 1:13:10 on the recording, Trustee Manning clearly asked the board members to pull their microphones closer and to speak up, so the public could hear.

Interesting. His voice was loud and clear on the recording, but I did not hear those words in the meeting.

Did you?

Could you hear last night, if you were in the room? Comments below, please.

If you were in the room and could not hear, please email the board and Mrs. Roof at lroof@richland2.org

9/22/21 was an illegal board meeting

The following open letter was emailed to Trustees Agostini, Scott and McFadden yesterday.

When there is a call for approval of the Consent Agenda at the September 28 board meeting, will you please make a motion for Item 6.2 to be removed from the Consent Agenda, to be discussed and voted on separately? If a second is needed, will another of you please provide it?

There is a major error in the Minutes for the 9/22/21 Board meeting. The Minutes include "Call to Order".

As you will see on the livestream recording (Part 1 begins at 14.33) maskless Teresa Holmes never called the meeting to order. Holmes was distracted by giggling and didn't even have her laptop open to the agenda for the meeting. She just started reading a statement. That entire statement was unnecessary. I believe you should find out who wrote that statement for Holmes to read. Then the board went into executive session (18:10). 

The Minutes need to be corrected. If Holmes refuses or the board denies, please call a Point-of-Order, so that the failure to call the meeting to order can be discussed in public.

By failing to call the meeting to order, it became illegal for the board to enter executive session. The board violated the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act by going into executive session. They cannot do so except in a formal meeting. And there was none.

It could be that the entire meeting, including approval of the superintendent's proposed revised contract, was illegal, since the meeting was not properly called to order.

The board desperately needs an in-depth FOIA training on open meetings and executive sessions. The board made an illegal decision in executive session on August 16, when it agreed on action to be taken if Manning's Motion about engaging legal counsel (getting advice) passed. 

Sincerely,

Gus Philpott

Richland 2 lawsuit? Well ???

Does anyone remember the lawsuit that Richland 2 filed in the South Carolina Supreme Court?

You know, the one that was not authorized by the board? Except the public learned from an article in The State that maybe the board did authorize it, just not publicly.

What was the date when two hand-picked attorneys showed up and pitched the five justices on their point of view? Anyone remember? Seems like a long time ago. 

The S.C. Supreme Court hearing was on August 31.That's four weeks ago from tomorrow.

Where is the decision? What's the delay? Has the S.C. Supreme Court decided, but it's holding off on publishing its decision? Why?

On August 16 Special-Called Meeting the school board met in executive (secret) session. No decisions are supposed to be made in executive session. That's state law. No "agree-to-agree" deals are supposed to be made. In open session Manning made a motion to engage legal counsel for advice. On August 19 the District filed a lawsuit. Many of us wondered when and how that was approved.

Why did Teresa Holmes lead the board in that subterfuge? Did she even understand what she was doing?

On Friday, September 17 reporter Lucas Daprile (The State) wrote that Libby Roof had explained it all. Here's what Lucas wrote:

“ 'This vote by the board was taken following an executive session during which the board received legal advice regarding the best option and legal strategy to address (the one-year mask law). The discussion included a clear description of what actions would be taken by district administrators if the board voted to give district administrators the authority to engage legal counsel,' Roof said in a statement."

Note that Manning's motion to was engage legal counsel; i.e., to get legal advice. But it turns out that the board had gotten legal advice during the executive session. That is even on the agenda for that August 16 Executive Session. 

Read carefully what Mrs. Roof said. She said that in the executive session the board received legal advice! The board discussed what was going to happen, if Manning's motion was approved. That's called DECISION and is prohibited by State law!

Anyone reading or hearing the motion would have believed that, after the superintendent got the legal advice sought, then he would return to the board and report what he had learned. But the board knew better and withheld that information from the public and from Mrs. Agostini, who had not attended the discussion.

Did that happen? NO. Instead, three days later the District filed a lawsuit! Who directed that? It had to be the superintendent.

Lucas Daprile wrote further: “ 'It was crystal clear what steps would be taken,' board secretary Amelia McKie told The State Thursday regarding the lawsuit vote." 

McKie admits to the illegal agreement-to-agree. 

Actually, McKie is not even a board member and cannot serve as board secretary. She has never taken the oath of office legally.

That agree-to-agree decision was a violation of the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act. Should the Richland 2 board be hauled into court to explain why they violated that law?

How long should a school board meeting be?

Remember when school board meetings were 90 minutes long? Sometimes less?

And now?

What's that old maxim? Work expands to fill the time allotted.

This is certainly true in Richland 2 School District.

"The Three", as Agostini, Scott (Elkins) and McFadden will be known here, have learned that they can exercise important control over The Four (and the superintendent).

All they have to do is walk out, and there is no quorum. Meeting over!

The Three are professionals, and they won't walk out unless it's important.

And if Holmes and the superintendent continue to pack board meeting agendas with everything except the kitchen sink, they should walk out at the 90-minute mark. After all, they will have been there 2-2½ hours at that point, when you add in the time for the executive session.

IF all board members read and studied their packets before the meeting and

IF all board members prepared their questions about items on the agenda, and

IF the board chair conducted the meeting with efficiency and courtesy,

the board would fly through these meetings.

You've probably heard that "if" is the biggest word in the English language.

The Three should make it clear to Holmes that they are no longer going to tolerate 2-2½-3 hour meetings after the executive session.

Get Holmes some training in how to conduct a meeting. That training should include clarification that she is never again to say, "I AM the point-of-order at this time."

Naming New Facilities

OK, sit up, folks.

Remember a few meetings ago when a question arose about the naming of new facilities.

Board Policy FF Naming New Facilities was just revised on March 12, 2019. 

Look at what is wanted now. Who has a name up her sleeve for a new facility's name? (I say "her" because there is only one man on the board.)  And which facility?

At the end of the Policy is a mark-up for a proposed change. If someone donates a lot of money, the board can consider naming a facility after the donor. Otherwise, faciliies cannot be named for a living person. 

Then the proposed revision reads: "In very unusual situations, names of persons who have been deceased for more than 10 3 or more years may also be considered." (More correct would be "three or more" years, rather than "3 or more".

Personally, I oppose naming any public buildings after people, dead or alive. If a building is a science building, then call it the Science Building.

Now R2 Board wants in the Cookie Jar

Not to be outdone by the superintendent's reach into the cookie jar, it appears that the Board doesn't want to lose out on its share. 

Do you ever read the agenda for upcoming board meetings? Do you know where to find it?

On the agenda for the Regular Meeting on September 28 (at least Holmes isn't calling a Special Meeting for this) is Item 2.4 Receipt of Legal Advice on Board Policy BID. That item and the legal advice sought by the Board will be hidden from public view by the executive session. That's where they line up the ducks before they march them out and over the public.

What is Board Policy BID?

Policy BID is Board Member Compensation and Expenses

Scared yet?

Is it by design and plan that the text of Board Policies cannot be copied (and then pasted into another document, such as right here?

If you want to read it, follow this path:

www.Richland2.org

Upper right corner, click on EXPLORE

Click on School Board

Click on BOARD POLICIES

On the left side, click on B - SCHOOL BOARD GOVERNANCE AND OPERATIONS

Then click on Policy BID Board Member Compensation and Expenses

What is it that the gang wants to know about how to increase their monthly stipend, per diem, mileage, number of meetings paid for, how much each board member can spend? Who decides what "reasonable and necessary" expenses are?

Is "reasonable and necessary" one amount if a person is spending her own money? Is it a higher amount when that person is spending OPM (Other Peoples' Money)? District money? Your money?

Do some board members live "high off the hog" when traveling on your dollar? Do they stay in the conference hotel at a negotiated group rate or do they skip off to a luxury hotel? Who checks closely on how much they have really put on their credit cards? Do Board Members have District credit cards, or do they use their own credit cards, submit expense accounts and then get reimbursed only at pre-approved amounts? 

Will the chair try to slip in a vote at Item 8.3 on a revision to Board Policy BID? Or will the issue come back at a future meeting for a decision? Or is a decision even necessary if the trustees want to bump up their spending? Will it just be buried out-of-sight in the Budget?

Grab your wallets and purses!!!

Shortest board meeting ever? 9/24/21

The September 24th Special-Called board meeting was called to order at 5:30PM and adjourned 16b minutes later.

The video-recording of the meeting (www.livestream.com/richland2) starts at 09:17. Holmes raps the gavel 5-6 times. One rap would have been sufficient. It's not like she had to silence a roomful of people talking and laughing. She calls the meeting to order.No roll call is taken, but one can see that Holmes, McKie, Caution-Parker, Manning and McFadden are present. Agostini and Scott are not present. Holmes does not announce that a quorum is present. They go into executive session.

When the board re-convenedin public session, the music over-ride wasn't canceled, and there was some type of recording glitch.

Then normal recording resumes.

The board then approved the agenda and the consent agenda. Then the board handled the important business of the evening.

Student Appeals 

Students 1-3 to Blythewood Academy for 90 days

Student 4 to Blythewood Academy (45 days) with LRADAC

Vote 5-0  (The correct vote is 5-0-0-2)

Admit Students 1-4 to the Adult Education Program

Vote 5-0 (The correct vote is 5-0-0-2)

Adjourn at 5:46PM

Now, about what could possibly go wrong in a short meeting.

Note how short the executive session had to be for careful consideration of the appeals of four students. In the past, the trustees have not voted unanimously on the recommendation of the superintendent. Now we can see that the absence of Agostini and Scott substantially shortened any discussion of the appeals. Did any of the students and parents show up? If they had only two days' notice, was that fair to them? And holding a meeting involving student appeals late on a Friday and at 5:30PM, when many working parents are still on the way home? Bad decision by the board!

And, most importantly, there was NOT a legal quorum present tonight. Who attended? Holmes, McKie, Caution-Parker, Manning and McFadden. Five.

BUT Holmes and McKie are not legitimate members of the board. Neither has ever legally taken the oath of office. They did take an oath, but that was three weeks before they were eligible to do so. They took the oath on November 13, 2018, but they did not become eligible to take the oath until December 4, 2018. Neither has taken the oath since November 13, 2018, according to the District.

So there were THREE legal board members there tonight, not Five. No quorum. And no quorum means  no meeting and no voting.