Board Brief 3/17/22 - Blank

Would you like to know what information the Richland 2 school board receives in "Board Briefs" from the superintendent? 

Presumably, this is information that the board has requested and that the superintendent ends up having to furnish, but in a way that it doesn't reach the public during a Board Meeting.

Go to the District webpage where the Agenda is usually found. The agenda for the April 5th board meeting has not yet been published.

What is there, under Documents, is "3/17/22 Board Brief". Click on it.

Follow the prompts. Keep clicking. When you get dizzy, get a cup of coffee and try again. No matter what you click on, you will not get to the 3/17/22 Board Briefs (4/1/22 11:29AM). Maybe this is the District's April Fool's Day joke.

After clicking on every word, including "Content", no 3/17/22 Board Brief shows up. Well, maybe that's what the superintendent really sent to the board. Nothing.

Sandlapper Elem. School Food Truck Event

Yesterday I spotted an announcement on Facebook of the Sandlapper Elementary School Food Truck event, being held this afternoon (April 1st - no joke).

So I re-read the January 26th Trespass Notice from Safety and Security Director Marq Claxton carefully and submitted my request for access authoritization at least 24 hours in advance. Patronizing the food truck today would be a great way to wind up the week.

Claxton denied my request, as expected.

The following email has been sent to Claxton's immediate superior, pursuant to revised Board Policy KE. What a shame that Mrs. Pamela Davis' outburst on January 26th has resulted in so much administrative and board time used. Did they really think I would just go away quietly and hide in a corner with my blankie?

Will Anderson, COO

Richland School District Two

Good morning, Mr. Anderson,

Pursuant to Board Policy KE (revised) I am filing this complaint against Marq Claxton, Safety & Security Director of Richland School District Two and your immediate subordinate.

Mr. Claxon improperly denied my request for access to Sandlapper Elementary School property today.

AR KI-R allows a designated security officer to apply Trespass only to "the school facility" (singular), not to "ALL [sic] properties, facilities, campuses and buildings" as stated in his January 26, 2022 Trespass Notice to me, received February 5, 2022. His Trespass Notice should have been applied only to R2i2. Nothing in AR KI-R authorizes him to unilaterally, arbitrarily and capriciously expand the Trespass order to ALL Richland Two properties.

I request that Mr. Claxton be disciplined in accordance with District policy, up to and including termination, for exceeding his authority in issuing the January 26, 2022 Trespass Notice (and other Trespass Notices), and I request his denial regarding today at Sandlapper be reversed. I also request that he be directed not to deny further requests from me to visit properties other than R2i2.

This complaint is separate and distinct from the Board's decision in my grievance, which it considered on February 22, 2022 in my forced absence. 

Please inform me of your decision on my complaint.

Sincerely,

Gus Philpott

S.188 - Call Now

S.C. Senate Bill S.188 is a very important bill that is dying a painful death in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This bill would prevent Amelia McKie from running for re-election in November 2022 because of her $57,100 debt to the South Carolina Ethics Commission.

Call S.C.Sen. Greg Hembree at (803) 212-6350 and ask him to do everything he can to move this bill now. Ask him what you can do. (I've emailed him twice and already called him today.) The bill has been stuck in the Senate Judiciary Committee since January 21, 2021.

It is preposterous that an elected officioal can owe that amount of money, not be paying on it in substantial amounts, and be allowed to remain in office. The Ethics Commission filed a judgment against McKie in the Richland County Common Pleas Court on July 10, 2019, and the S.C. Dept. of Revenue is supposed to collect it. 

Does anyone else wonder why the S.C. Ethics Commission is not pressing for collection?

I doubt it will do much good to call McKie's friend, Sen. Mia McLeod, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She ought to be willing to favor such a bill, but she won't return any phone calls to me or reply to my emails.

R2 Board Still Has Two Illegitimate Members

Why has the Richland 2 school board never caused the problem of board illegitimacy to be resolved?

The problem? The Richland 2 School Board has two women on it who are not legitimate members. Why aren't they? They have never taken the oath-of-office legally.

Who are they? Teresa Holmes and Amelia McKie.

On November 6, 2018 Holmes was elected to the Board and McKie was re-elected. A board meeting was held on November 13, 2018, and the oath-of-office was administered to them on that date (Nov. 13).

However, neither had filed her Statement of Economic Interests Report (SEI) with the South Carolina Ethics Commission! Because neither had filed the SEI by November 13th, neither was eligible to take the oath-of-office on that date. The oath they did take was only "practice"; it has no legal effect.

According to State law (Section 8-13-1110(A)) one must file the SEI before taking the oath-of-office.

The Voice of Blythewood newspaper blew the whistle on them, and both Holmes and McKie filed SEIs on December 4, 2018.

On December 4, 2018, Holmes and McKie first became eligible to take the oath-of-office, but they have never done so.

But Richland 2 has allowed them to serve and to continue to serve, even serving as officers of the board.

I have heard that the District considers that merely a "technicality". It is not. 

Their serving is a violation of law. Holmes and McKie are usurping public office. Richland 2 has been paying them a stipend (now, a per diem) for meetings and paying handsomely for expenses each year.

All Holmes and McKie have to do to become legal board members is take the oath-of-office. They have been eligible to take it since December 4, 2018. 

Every board vote they have participated in since November 13, 2018 needs to be corrected. Many decisions will change, when their votes are removed. Instead of 3-4 (Fail), the votes will become 3-2 (Approve).

Every form, document, resolution signed by them needs to be re-done. Even Bond Issue legal documents.

All the money paid to them by the District needs to be refunded to Richland 2.

This should happen before they leave office in November 2022. But, if it doesn't happen before, then it should happen after, even when they are no longer in office.

Open Letter to Richland 2 Board & Supt.

The following email has been sent today to the Richland 2 School Board and the superintendent about the BeSMART program. Agendas for board meetings are often planned on the Thursday prior to a board meeting.

Members of the Board, trustees-elect Holmes and McKie, and Supt. Davis,

On December 9, 2021 Richland 2 launched, with great fanfare, the BeSMART initiative on ending gun-violence in Richland 2 schools.

On March 7, 2022 14-year-old Trevion Fuller, a Blythewood Academy student from Richland Northeast High School, was shot to death about two blocks north of RNE.

A 16-year-old was arrested that same night, and three additional juveniles have been arrested. How many of them were RNE students?

To my knowledge, BeSMART has not been mentioned at a board meeting since December 9th.

I request an update to the Board and to the Public at the April 7, 2022 Regular Board Meeting or the following meeting. Please add this item to the agenda.

Sincerely,

Gus Philpott

Five Kicked Off Penna. School Board

Be sure to read this FoxNews article about the judge in Pennsylvania who booted five school board members. 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/pennsylvania-judge-boots-school-board-members-mask-mandate

A parent got sick and tired of the mask mandate and went to court. She argued that "under the Pennsylvania school code districts have no authority to require students to wear masks."

Pennsylvania must have partisan school board races, because the five who were booted were all Democrats.

Gee, what would be said if Holmes, McKie, Caution-Parker and Manning got booted off the Richland 2 School Board? I'll bet at least three are Democrats; maybe all four?

Does this tell you something about the West Chester Area School District? "The board opted to continue requiring masks after Pennsylvania's state of emergency first ended in June 2021. It kept the decision in place two months after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared the mandate unconstitutional in December."

How important are words?

One of the things I've learned over the years is how important each word is in a rule, regulation or policy. I notice spelling, case, number, punctuation. Maybe that's why I like editing manuscripts and proof-reading for authors. 

I recall one day at the Sears headquarters in Chicago, when I was discussing a policy with an associate in the Des Moines call center. We were having a conversation that was becoming more and more intense over one sentence in the policy, when I suggested that he fax me the page at which he was looking and I would fax him the page in my copy of the policy. The sentence in question turned out not to be identical. One of them had the word "not" that was not in the other copy. No wonder we couldn't agree!

Now to Richland 2.

In Administrative Rule KI-R the section on “No Trespass” Notices reads,

"District and school administrators, after school or after hours program managers, district security and safety staff, school resource officers or other on-duty, or extra-duty law enforcement officers assigned to work at a school or event may issue a verbal or written “no trespass” notice for the school facility, delay the entry of a person for cause, or ask for the removal any such individual as necessary. On-duty law enforcement officers patrolling a school campus after-hours may also issue a “no trespass” notice to individuals who are not in compliance with a school’s “no trespass” sign or rules, are causing a disturbance, or are not in compliance with a local law while on school property."

I've added the emphasis with yellow highlighting.

Notice the wording "for the school facility". The reference is singular. "Facility" means one building. It does not mean all the properties of the Richland 2 school district. If those who wrote the policy had meant for a trespass notice to apply to ALL buildings, property, etc., the crafters of the section would have used a plural word.

Now, look at the wording in the Trespass Notice letter issued by the District. It reads, "... you are excluded from any and ALL [emphasis in the original] Richland School District Two properties, facilities, campuses and buildings ..."

I am challenging Richland 2 on this point. Marq Claxton exceeded his authority when he broadened the Administrative Rule and banned me from ALL properties. If the District is going to hang its hat on a Board Policy or Administration Rule, they are going to follow it.

I have filed separate and distinct complaints, other than my own grievance, with Holmes, McKie, Caution-Parker, and Manning. None responded. When I followed up with Manning on the lack of a response from Holmes to my March 8th complaint, he wrote "You have repeatedly emailed the entire board, members of the executive staff, and Dr. Davis with your complaints. You have received formal correspondence from our board secretary notifying you that a decision has been made related to your grievance."

And right he is. And I shall continue to write and to complain on valid points. They opened the can of worms, when The Core Four failed to investigate the superintendent and his wife, Pamela Davis, for their words and actions on January 25. 

And, on a picky point, that correspondence did not come from the "board secretary". It came from the woman who is Special Assistant to School Board; i.e., secretary to the board, not "board secretary". The (acting) Board Secretary is trustee-elect Amelia McKie, and she isn't even the legal Board Secretary. You have to be a legitimate member of the board in order to be a board officer!