Can Chair unilaterally adjourn meeting?

Newly-elected Board Chair James Shadd has adopted a change when arriving at the last item on an agenda. When it's time for a motion to adjourn, he has begun stating something to the effect of, "Seeing no opposition, we will adjourn."

While Shadd is Chair, he really is just one member of the board.

He doesn't "see" any opposition to adjourning, because he hasn't called for any opposition.

Does this follow the Robert's Rules of Order? It's past time for Attorney McFadden to come back to the Richland 2 school board for an additional training session regarding Robert's Rules.

Should he respect the other members of the board and ask for a Motion to Adjourn? One member would make the Motion; another would second it. He could ask for a hand vote. (Voice votes should not be requested in Zoom meetings.) That would take about 15 seconds.

In effect, he muzzles any board member who might wish to speak.

Why has he changed a long-standing procedure?

LEAP Day - all week!

The Richland 2 School Board has announced a Special-Called Meeting for Tuesday, July 28, 2020. The only item on the agenda is approval of the 2020-2021 Revised Calendar for the school year.

The meeting will begin at 4:30PM and go immediately into Executive Session. The open meeting will re-convene at 5:00PM and will be live-streamed. Use this link to access the meeting on your computer: www.richland2.org/livestream

NOTE 1: The District's homepage fails to provide the livestream meeting link.
NOTE 2. "Upcoming Events" on the homepage fails to list the special-called meeting.

Look at the revised calendar (Calendar D) carefully.

The orange fill for August 17-21 indicates Elementary and Middle School LEAP Days.
The red fill for August 24-28 indicates Teacher Work Days.

NOTE. The first day of school is Monday, August 31.
Then notice the holiday on Monday, September 7. That's Labor Day, of course.

What is a LEAP Day?

The South Carolina Department of Education has posted this information. The title for the posting includes a grammar example that, in many years of education and business, I have never seen:

Learn, Evaluate, Analyze, & Prepare (LEAP) Added Instructional Days

Pre- and Post-Assessment Requirements

I wonder whether anyone at the SCDE considered whether that is correct or agonized over the combination of comma and ampersand. Why not omit the comma?

Are the big-dollar honchos at the SCDE conscious at all of the cost of operting schools? Apparently not.

"Not all 4K–8th grade students in a district must be involved in all five learning preparation days. Those students deemed critical to attend, as well as how many days they will need to attend, should be determined based on the identified needs of students in a district."

Who decides which students do not have to show up for one or more LEAP Days?
Who does have to show up?
How does the District arrange transportation, teachers, staff and breakfast & lunch for those who are "critical"? Guess which ones won't show up?

Should the District should switch the weeks of LEAP Days and Teacher Work Days? Should school start August 24 for all students?

More on Holmes' 7/21/20 Attack

Now that the July 21, 2020 school board meeting video has been posted to YouTube, it was possible to listen again to trustee-elect Teresa Holmes' vicious attack on Trustee Lindsay Agostini.

Mrs. Agostini had asked proper, intelligent questions about the proposed policy that was under discussion.

In his defensive response the superintendent had sniped at Mrs. Agostini.

At approximately 1:06:43 on the recording, Holmes jumped in with "Mr. Chaaaiiiiirrrrr."

Then she led off with how she had been sitting there and listening to "this" and she just "had to" say what she was about it say. First of all, she didn't have to say it, but she intended to.

Holmes proceeded down the path of its not being a board member's job to run the day-to-day operation of a school.

She neglected to comprehend that Mrs. Agostini had NOT tried to run the day-to-day operation of a school. Mrs. Agostini had asked for one email that was sent to staff that did not agree with a board decision on certain monies to be spend by the end of the fiscal year, June 30.

Such an inquiry is fully within the scope and duty of a Board Trustee.

But Holmes kept hammering away on something that Mrs. Agostini had not even done, and she said it louder and longer as if that would be sufficient to persuade the public that Mrs. Agostini had acted improperly.

And then Holmes, as had (trustee-elect) McKie at a recent board meeting, tried to lecture Mrs. Agostini on the role of a board member. My guess is that Holmes hasn't even read Board Policy BBA - Board Powers and Duties, where there are 11 topics enumerated as board powers and duties. It's far beyond selecting and retaining a superintendent.

Board Chair Shadd should have cut off Holmes. But he didn't. Why not? Because Holmes is one of the votes that put him into the Chair's seat for this school year. Shadd would do well to put a stop to the long, rambling, defensive statements by the superintendent (just answer the question in as few words as possible) and the back-biting by at least three of the board members toward to the "minority".

Richland 2 voters and taxpayers deserve to have knowledgeable people on the board. If the threshold for board election were "knowledgeable", at least three of them would be left in the dust on the side of the road.

McKie and $51,750 Judgment

On July 10, 2019 the South Carolina Ethics Commission filed a $51,750 judgment against (Richland 2 trustee-elect) Amelia McKie in Richland County Common Pleas Court.

This is July 23, 2020. What has happened in court in the past year?

According to online public records, absolutely nothing!

If you think that the Ethics Commission shouldn't "file it and forget it", contact the S.C. Ethics Commission at 803-253-4192. Or you can write. And call your State Senator and Representative and ask him to help the State collect that money. And call the S.C. Department of Revenue (DOR), which is supposed to be collecting it on behalf of the Ethics Commission.

What could the DOR grab? 1. Her pay from the Richland 2 School District. A garnishment would certainly look great on her C.V., wouldn't it?

2. How about her other income? Oh, you say, what other income?
3. Is there equity in her home that could be attached?
4. Does she have a car that could be sold?

That $51,750 didn't just pop out of the ground one spring day like an early flower.

McKie didn't file required documents in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018. She had fair warning of fines and fees and still didn't make any payment(s).

If McKie began making monthly payments on that debt, with a plan to pay it off by the time her elected term ends in November 2022, she would have to pay $1.917 monthly! If she sought bankruptcy protection, would she be forced to resign from the school board? Could she even "resign", since she is not a legitimate member of the board?

But is the Ethics Commission really just a toothless public body, when it comes to collecting monies owned to it? The public Debtors List as of April 3, 2020 is 26 pages and totals $2,717,416.32.

The big question is why isn't the Ethics Commission either muscling the DOR to collect that money or hiring an outside collection agency to go after the debtors.

A request has been sent to S.C. Sen. Mia McLeod and S.C. Rep. Ivory Thigpen to find out from the DOR what steps it is taking to collect this debt and to let me know by August 7. It's not so much that I want to know, but I believe that you should know.

Who are the "babies"?

Near the end of the July 21, 2020 school board meeting trustee-elect Amelia McKie once again mentioned the "babies".

She said "rally around our babies", and then she said, "educate our babies".

About whom is she speaking? Is she referring to high school students? Middle school students? Elementary school students? Ask a third-grader how she feels about being a considered a "baby" by a school board trustee.

Is Richland 2 in the daycare business?

That meeting was not the first time she has referred to Richland 2 students as "babies".

Every time it happens in the future, there should be a loud roar from the parents, teachers, other staff and the community that those being educated by Richland 2 are students.

What does calling the boys and girls, and young men and women, of Richland 2 "babies" have to say about the emotional growth and development of McKie? What kind of counseling or coaching does she need? Has even one of the other trustees or the superintendent said, "You know, Amelia, calling our students :babies" is demeaning"?

If Teresa Holmes wants to be offended by something, as she claimed at the July 21st meeting, let her be offended by "babies".Holmes is a high school counselor and loves to call herself "Dr. Holmes." Of course, Teresa and Amelia are best buds. Weren't they in the "in group", the Squad, that elected the officers for the 2020-2021 board by a pre-arranged vote?

Is Holmes offended by McKie's judgment in Richland County Common Pleas Court for $51,750 owed to the South Carolina Ethics Commission?

Is Proposed Policy BEDGA even Legal?

There was a robust discussion about proposed Policy BEDGA at yesterday's board meeting.

The two sharp trustees who pay attention to detail, Lindsay Agostini and Monico Elkins-Johnson (neither a member of the Squad) asked pointed questions.

Elkins-Johnson asked whether Richland 2 had created this proposed policy or if it had come from the South Carolina School Boards Association. Or if Richland 2's legal counsel (Kathryn Mahoney) had written it. Who thought it up?

The superintendent provided a long-winded, convoluted answer. He basically objected to the question.

Then Lindsay Agostini asked who had commissioned the proposed policy? (In other words, who authorized spending District money?)

The superintendent blinked and passed the buck to James Manning. He acknowledged that he had done so. It was clear that Agostini thought the Board should have discussed the topic of the proposed policy and then voted whether to authorize the Chair to engage the attorney for the District to proceed. And spend District money doing so. Instead, Manning just went forward.

There is no doubt in my mind that it was the superintendent who wanted this policy. He wants it so that HE can decide whether a board member's request for information is "reasonable". He forgets that he works for, and at the direction of, the Board.

Agostini asked if such a policy is legal and referred to an opinion of the South Carolina Attorney General. Manning said the attorney wrote it.

Agostini knew, and I agree, that just because the attorney wrote it doesn't mean it is legal.

Look how the superintendent is "bullet-proof" through this proposed policy.

If a board member makes a request and the superintendent doesn't like it, he will deny it. Then the board member must get the Board to approve her request, and then the superintendent will comply. The superintendent knows that a board member (ex., Agostini or Elkins-Johnson) will never get the majority of the board (Shadd, Holmes, McKie, Caution-Parker (even though Holmes and McKie are not even legitimate members of the board)) to approve over-riding the superintendent's denial (veto).

Voters will have a chance in November 2020 to retain Agostini and Elkins-Johnson (if they run for re-election) and replace Shadd. Voters may elect a wise, concerned, intelligent, management-oriented candidate (such as voters in Richland One did on December 31, 2019, when they elected Jonathan Milling), if such a candidate can be found. In November 2022 voters can dump McKie, Holmes and Caution-Parker, and then the Board can once again begin directing the District.

I can almost hear the thunk of the rubber-stamps hitting the bottom of the waste basket.

New Public Participation Procedure

The District's new Public Participation Policy worked pretty well last night. The District had collected 63 comments from the public, and they were read to the board by Libby Roof, Chief Communications Officer for the District.

Had the public been speaking, the first Public Participation segment on the meeting agenda would have allowed 15 minutes for comments and then a second 15 minutes toward the end of the meeting. Each member of the public could have read his/her comment, but the administration decided that the comments would be read.

How does that jibe with the official, written Policy? It doesn't.

Mrs. Roof did a great job of plowing through the comments. She identified the person who had submitted the comment and then read the comment. The submitted comments were shown during the meeting and will be given to the board members. I suspect the board will receive an electronic copy of the comments. This will mean that most board members will never read them.

Unfortunately, the images of the board members were not shown during reading of the comments. Thus, it was impossible to know whether they were paying attention  This should be corrected in future Zoom meetings. The images of the trustees should be visible during the entire meeting.

One member of the public had submitted several comments, which were combined. All comments, except one, were on the topic of schools re-opening.

Two board members will look at the comments and probably even print some of them. The others? Out of sight, out of mind.