How to Shorten School Board Meetings

Richland 2 School Board meetings could be shortened to one hour; maybe to 90 minutes - max. How?

Eliminate the long-winded, unnecessary introductions of the Inspirational Moment. By the way, it's not spelled INSPRIATIONAL. That should have been corrected after the last meeting.

Limit the Inspirational Moment to a "moment"; say, 90-120 seconds.

Wake up some of the board members so that, when the Chair calls for a routine Motion, somebody pipes up. It's just a motion. You're not signing up for after-school duty.

Eliminate unnecessary, extraneous, long-winded statements by board members. Say what you've got to say, keep it on topic, and zip it.

Limit the superintendent to ten minutes for his reports. Tell him not to read to people who can read and not to repeat himself. Set a timer. When it dings, he gets the red light.

Tell the superintendent to stop sniping at Trustee Agostini. He works for her; not the other way around. She asked him a question. To answer with something like "I covered that in my Facebook LIVE", insinuating that she should have spent her time watching the Baron Davis Show, was disrespectful.

Same for staffers. Ten minutes. Or less.

Limit board members' remarks to those that contribute to the conversation. Eliminate rambling. 

As soon as a board member says she'll keep it short, start a timer. It's not necessary to ramble on and on about the COVID-19 count worldwide, in the U.S. and in South Carolina. It's in The State every day.

Board members, let the Chair do his job. The Chair can thank speakers, teachers. Don't usurp his role.

Was it really necessary for the Chair to wish former board member Chip Jackson a happy birthday for tomorrow? He died on August 7.

Capital Improvements Report

If you want to know how your $468,000,000 from the 2018 bond issue is being spent, be sure to watch the Capital Improvements Report given by Will Anderson. 

Richland 2 must be in the running for national architectural awards. Look at the modern buildings, including the Arts Center! Are they really suitable for the expenditure of public dollars? 

Will's report starts at approximate one hour 34 minutes into the meeting. It's mind-blowing!

What was Caution-Parker doing?

In the recording of this week's school board meeting (9/22/2020) notice the amount of time that Trustee Caution-Parker was looking down. 

What was she doing all that time? Texting? Reading or writing email? (There is a Board Policy about using electronics during board meetings.)

I was reminded of the cartoon that circulates on Facebook of the teacher who commented on a student who was taking a test and smiling while he was looking down into his lap. You've probably seen that.

Inappropriate Virtual Background

During tonight's school board meeting Trustee Manning sat in front of his personalized Zoom "virtual background", which seemed to read "NOTORIOUS RBG". My apologies for the quality of the photo from the computer monitor.

Was it appropriate for him to express his personal views about anything other than school board business during a school board meeting?

Two other board members (well, really just one) displayed virtual backgrounds, but their choice was the District's wallpaper. Others did not use any virtual background.

Personally, I believe Manning's choice was inappropriate. Notice in the video-recording of the meeting how he sat off to the side so that the drawing of RBG was prominent. The Board Chair should have texted Manning and asked him to turn off his virtual background during the meeting.

Comments?

Candidates' Forum is after voting begins

Richland County absentee voting in the election of School Board members (and other races) begins October 5-7 (depending on the satellite location), BUT the forum for candidates for the three open positions on the School Board will not be held until October 20th, only two weeks before the election.

Many voters will already have voted before they have the chance to size up the candidates at the forum planned at R2i2 (or probably virtually) on October 20.

Who picked that date? Did the candidates get their heads together and pick that date?  

Do you think the candidates should have their forum sooner?

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