Will Fireworks Continue on January 11?

Has the Richland 2 superintendent made peace with Trustee Lashonda McFadden?

At the December 14, 2021 school board meeting, Mrs. McFadden related that she has been "ex-communicated" from speaking with the superintendent, was under an "order of confidentiality" and wondered whether she ought to be consulting with an attorney. You can heard her comments on the livestream.com/richland2 recording, beginning at 4:43:35 on the timer.

How does a superintendent get away with severing a professional, business relationship with an elected and legal member of the board?

What does "ex-coimmunicated" mean in this context? 

Does it mean that she cannot speak to him? Or that he will not speak to her? Just how would the superintendent keep her from speaking to him?

For the record, Mrs. McFadden has not spoken to me about difficulties with the superintendent. If she has to get an attorney, the District should absolutely be on the hook for the bill. That will require the Board's approval. What will the Core Four* decide, if a Motion is made to pay her legal expenses?

Mrs. McFadden has identified a serious problem for the School Board. The superintendent apparently wants every request for information filtered through him. Will all Trustees be afraid to perform their fiduciary duties?

Recently, the superintendent got the Board (well, the majority, anyway) to go along with a request from him to deny board member requests that he considered unreasonable. If, in his opinion, staff will have to spend too much time answering such a request, then the superintendent can nix it and say he will only respond if the request comes from the full board. 

We all know what happens when a member of the minority on the board makes a Motion. The seven board members (five legal members and two illegitimate members) seldom agree. 

A good solution will be for voters to replace the Core Four in the November 8, 2022 election. Bring in smart, educated, business-oriented people who understand they are running a business. The business is education. Board members need to be, first, good business people, not educators.

Watch carefully what happens over the last six months of this school year. The next election of Board Officers will be June 28, 2022. Begin lobbying the board to elect as officers (Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary) only trustees who are legal board members and who have the ability to run meetings professionally, smoothly, politely, and quickly.

* The Core Four are Trustees Manning and Caution-Parker and trustees-elect Holmes and McKie.

Board Minutes omitted from 1/11/2022 Agenda

On every agenda for a school board meeting is an item in the Consent Agenda to approve the Minutes of a previous meeting.

On every agenda except the January 11th Agenda, that is.

Let me quickly add that I believe it was an oversight of the District employee who prepares the Agenda. An item on her checklist should be "Have Minutes been attached?"

I'm a great fan of checklists. They keep you from forgetting important items. When I was flying, the pilot's checklist had an item "Put Landing Gear Down." 

When you are landing a plane, you don't have to put the landing gear down. The plane will land, if you don't put the gear down. The airport people don't like the skid marks on the runway, and it takes a lot of power to taxi to the terminal!

Why are the Minutes of the December 14, 2021 board meeting important? That was the meeting at which Trustee McFadden remarked that she has been ex-communicated from speaking with the Superintendent, had received some type of "order of confidentiality" and wondered whether she might need to confer with a private attorney.

All that should be in the Minutes.

If it's not there, a trustee should make a Motion on Tuesday night to amend the Minutes. That'll be a secondary motion that Teresa Holmes has such a hard time handling. The Core Four will vote it down, although they shouldn't. At least, it will be on the record.

Watch for a revised Agenda on Monday before 5:30PM. That's tje magic hour. After 5:30PM the agenda cannot be changed. Revised Agendas should be so noted, including the date and time of the revision. But that is not how District 2 notates them.

S.C. Legislature - how responsive?

The South Carolina legislature will return to action soon. At whom will they rattle their swords this year?

I just emailed the Ethics Committee of the S.C. House of Representatives. 

My email read as follows:

"I am writing to ask that you put some teeth in the Ethics Laws.

"At Richland 2 School District Amelia McKie owes $57,100 to the S.C. Ethics Commission. She has made only small irregular payments. The Ethics Commission filed a judgment in Richland County Common Pleas Court on 7/10/2019, and the SC DOR has done little or nothing to collect on it, as evidenced by the balance remaining at the high level. S.C. law should be changed to prohibit public office holding by such a debtor. McKie was elected 11/6/2018 and has never taken the oath-of-office legally since filing her SEI on 12/4/2018. Yet she remains in office."

House Ethics Committee members are 

Ethics

Contact | Subcommittee Assignments

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Jordan, Wallace H. "Jay", Jr., Chairman

Weeks, J. David, V.C.

Bernstein, Beth E., Secy.

Bamberg, Justin T.

Calhoon, Paula Rawl

Caskey, Micajah P. "Micah", IV

Collins, Neal A.

Rutherford, J. Todd

Smith, G. Murrell, Jr.

Stavrinakis, Leonidas E. "Leon"

Shuler, Jane O., Chief Legal Counsel

Foster, Julia Jones, Asst. Legal Counsel

Richardson, Kiara, Exec. Asst.

Know any of them? Care to pile on?

Is CRT in Richland 2 Schools?

Read this article titled "Applying CRT in Lexington and Richland County Public Schools". "CRT" is Critical Race Theory.

You know - that "thing" that is not taught in Richland 2 schools, according to Helen Grant and Teresa Holmes.

Author Freddy Hill explains that CRT is practiced and applied to K-12 students, not "taught" to them. CRT is done "to" students.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is mentioned, too.

Theorist Richard Delgado and one of his books are mentioned. Delgado's name was pronounced "Degaldo" by Helen Grant, Richland Two's "expert" on culturally relevant teaching who could not answer a question from a board member about what Critical Race Theory is.

A whole section in the article is devoted to Helen Grant, "who works with Lexington District 2 schools, while working officially for Richland District Two"

What? For the salary that Richland Two pays Helen Grant, they don't get her full-time efforts?

The article also states this: "Dr. Helen Grant also will discuss gender issues with students who are thinking they are not the gender they were biologically assigned at birth."

Helen Grant has a law degree - a J.D., so she wants to be addressed as Dr. Grant. How many students go "Dr. Grant" to discuss gender issues and think that they are talking to a doctor? Why does she have any student contact at all? 

Public Participation - 12/14/2021

The Public Participation segment of the December 14, 2021 meeting being at 1:28:08 on the livestream.com/richland2 recording.

Holmes read her threatening warning once again. This time she added "gossip" to the prohibited comments. While the word "gossip" is actually mentioned as a prohibited category for speaking, has there ever been a Public Participation segment when a speaker repeated gossip? Not in any of the board meeting I have attended in three years!

Nor have I ever heard any of the other prohibited categories mentioned: defamatory words, or abusive or vulgar language.

I wish I could say the same for comments by certain board members during and after meetings.

Please listen to the comments. If you can't be at the meetings, this is where you hear parents and community members unload on the board.

Occasionally, you'll hear a "friend" of the board stand up and praise the board. Decide for yourself how "real" those comments are.

McKie files Amended SEI with Ethics Commission

Trustee-elect Amelia McKie filed an amended report with the South Carolina Ethics Commission on December 23, 2021, finally reporting her 2020 income from the Richland 2 School District.

When she filed the original Statement of Economic Interests Report (SEI) on January 12, 2021, she omitted her School District income of the $9,600 stipend (paid monthly at $800) for the Year 2020. She reported only that she had private consulting income from NLLC (whatever that is).

The purpose of the SEI is to reveal any potential conflicts-of-interest. What is NLLC?  It is impossible to know what NLLC is, when the Ethics Commission allows identifying a business only by initials. The amount of personal income is not required to be disclosed.

She also failed to report any Private Income for Immediate Family Members on either the original or amended SEI for the Year 2020. McKie was addressed at several board meetings as Mrs. McKie. Was she married for any part of 2020? If so, she should have reported the source (but not the amount) of any private income received by a family member.

McKie, who has never taken the oath-of-office legally since filing her SEI on December 4, 2018, served as Board Chair from November 2018 until June 30, 2019. Since she wasn't a legal board member, she should not have continued to serve as chair after November 6, 2018.

On June 29, 2020 she was elected Board Secretary, after Trustee Caution-Parker nominated her. That was the board meeting at which I beseeched the board to nominate and elect only fully-qualified board members.

When the elections began that evening, James Manning immediately nominated Teresa Holmes, the other illegitimate board member (same reason; Holmes has never taken the oath-of-office after filing her own SEI on December 4, 2018).

McKie has had problems with the Ethics Commission in the past, resulting in her now owing $57,100 to the S.C. Ethics Commission, including a judgment for $51.700 filed in the Richland County Common Pleas Court on July 10, 2019.

This is the officer of the school board elected as Secretary and with the fiduciary responsbility for attesting to the proper and legal signature of the Board Chair on bond documents and other legal instruments requiring board signatures.

Are you feeling nice and secure, knowing that two important officers of the board are not legitimate board members?

Socialism in R2: what are kids learning?

Parents, ask your kids what they are learning about socialism in Richland 2 schools.

What are teachers teaching? 

Is socialism better than capitalism? Is socialism the be-all, end-all?

Where did their teachers go to college and grad school? How liberal was their education? Ask your kids' teachers about socialism and what their views are of it.

Read this article titled "Why More Young People Favor Socialism and What We Should Do: Mary Eberstadt"

Print the four pages and discuss them at dinner or at a family meeting. 

Admittedly, I grew up in a different generation, when Russians and Communists weren't our friends. It was clear that they weren't our friends. And they aren't now. I wasn't sucked into the liberal viewpoint of the 1960s. Heck, going to college in Iowa, I'd say I missed the Sixties.

I favor Education, not Indoctrination. 

Make certain your kids get educated.