Sign up? Show up!

If you sign up to speak during Public Participation, then show up.

Whose brainchild was the electronic advance registration system? Did that person anticipate no-shows? How many times have speakers failed to approach the the microphones after their names were called?

Should registered speakers have to "check in" upon arrival? Can you still register in-person before 6:15PM?

If you change your mind, notify the Assistant to the Board, Christine Lewis, at chrislewis@richland2.org

Cancellation is a common courtesy to the board and to the public.

5:46:00 Trainwreck

The Livestream recording of last night's board meeting was 5:46:00; that's FIVE hours 46 minutes from  the beginning of the executive session to adjournment.

Subtract one hour (5:30-6:30pm), and the board went at it for four hours 46 minutes - about three hours longer than they should have.

I bailed the first time at about 6:55PM, after the super-long Inspirational "Moment". (How long is a "moment"?)

When the Minutes are incorrect, you don't approve them with known errors. You pull the Minutes from the Consent Agenda, approve the remainder of the Consent Agenda, move to correct them, and then approve them. 

Somebody made a motion "to move..." or moved to make a motion. Please! Looks like the written version of the Minutes was cleaned up, because I couldn't spot that this morning. But it's in the recording.

I returned later for the public participation. The "I Love Baron" group was certainly there. The woman who bashed Lashonda should have been interrupted and admonished. Board Policy BEDH is clear; it prohibits "any expression of personal complaints about individual school personnel or any other person connected with the school system." Lashonda is clearly a protected person.

That woman was careful to avoid reference to Teresa Holmes' taunting and baiting of Lashonda and the continual disrespect Holmes had demonstrated toward Lashonda for months. Teresa and she must be friends.

Board members must learn Robert's Rules of Order. When a Motion is under discussion, board member comments must be germane to the Motion. Bringing up the kitchen sink was out-of-order and should have been stopped.

The Public is clamoring for the board to "take action" and act on their campaign promises. The board must resist that pressure and conduct the business before them.

If meetings continue like last night's, the I.G. will probably investigate further!

Was there something about a committee of the board (three members) trying to agree on planning future agendas with the superintendent? Remember when a committee was formed to design a horse? What did they end up with?

"Work Expands To Fill the Time Allotted"

 You've heard that time-proven statement; right?

The school board proved it again last night.

The board went into Executive Session at 5:46PM and re-convened in open, public session at 9:23PM. Last night's recording (Livestream) was 4:03:08. That's OVER four hours. 

To all those who showed up expecting the board to fire the superintendent. Tough luck. You shouldn't have fallen for Manning's trick when he threw bloody meat into the water for all you sharks.

Nor should you have fallen for Chris Leevy Johnson bait. 

Be sure to thank them for wasting your Thursday evening.

Good thing that Joe Trapp moved to pull "board superintendent relations" from the Executive Committee agenda. Otherwise, you'll still be sitting there.

The board should establish not only a starting time for meetings (and then start on time), but it should decide on an Ending Time.

Set a meeting length of 90 minutes and work against a Countdown Timer. When people get long-winded and repetitive, cut 'em off.

Leevy Johnson and Manning - both wrong.

Yesterday Chris Leevy Johnson, preacher at Brookland Baptist Church Northeast and Baron Davis' preacher, posted this while at R2i2:

"There is a Special Call [sic] Meeting this Thursday at Richland County School District Two (no time has been posted yet) Please spread the word and we need the community to come out to support Dr. Davis and remind the board of the phenomenal job he is doing!"

What Johnson fails to realize is that it doesn't matter one whit whether his tribe shows up to cheer for the superintendent tomorrow night. All they'll get to do is sit on their hands and observe. If they cheer or clap when Davis' name is mentioned, they'll be escorted out of the meeting.

The chair may need to caution the audience to keep quiet, or a board member may need to make a motion for order in the peanut gallery.

Today, about 1:30PM, former board chair James Manning posted this comment to Johnson's message. (Manning has two Facebook pages. The one with 183 Friends shows that he "works at Richland School District Two". Seriously?)

"Don’t let the board make decisions in a vacuum. Show up to ensure they have to look you in the face when making decisions. There is a good chance they will fire the superintendent at this meeting. [emphasis added.] This is based on previous examples of school districts having done this same thing post elections. They want a weak leader who will do their bidding. Not be a true leader."

Read it again. And then again.

The board is not going to care who is sitting in the audience.. It will make decisions based on information and facts, not on glares and stares from Baron's buddies.

Will they fire Baron Davis tomorrow night? Not a chance. There are 360,000 reasons that will not happen tomorrow night. That's the really sweet severance package that Manning and his cohorts in the board majority gave Baron Davis when they renewed his contract (was it in 2021?).

What the board may do is remind Baron that he is am employee of the District. If he does his job well, he'll keep his job. 

The board wants, and will insist on, a strong leader. Remember - Baron is the guy who was running the District when the Inspector General investigated. If Baron had been doing a "phenomenal" job, there wouldn't have been any I.G. investigation.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Chris. 

Baron is going to find out that he is accountable to the board. He no longer will be allowed to control the board. Those days ended on November 21.

The board tells Baron what to do. His job is to do it. He plays a high-risk game to defy the board. 

Special-Called Board Meeting - (this) Thursday, Jan. 5

The Richland 2 school board has announced a Special-Called Meeting for (this) Thursday, Jan. 5, at 5:30PM at R2i2.

Two items will be discussed in Executive Session: 1) the superintendent's contract and 2) superintendent board relations.

Of course, "in Executive Session" means you won't hear the good stuff.

After the Executive Session ends and the board re-convenes in open session, the board will vote on action to be taken, if any.

The board will then discuss the Inspector General's Report. This should be more than interesting.

The I.G. was critical of the (past) board, but many of the issues involved matters that the board either didn't know about or chose to keep quiet about. The only way that the board could have known about problems was if the superintendent had informed them.

The new board should be grilling the superintendent about the extent to which, if any, he informed any members of the then-majority on the board about the problems. 

Board Chair Lindsay Agostini should appoint a special committee to dig into the I.G.'s Report. Not more than two board members, plus members of the public, staff, teachers. The I.G.'s Report shouldn't consume all the time of the board, but it shouldn't get just left-overs.

Next board meeting Dec. 13, 2022 (oh, wait)

If you look at the Richland 2 homepage, you'll see that the next school board meeting is December 13, 2022. Seriously?

Obviously, that's wrong. The next Regular board meeting will be on January 10th, but you have to know where to look to find the date.

Why wasn't the December 13th meeting announcement removed on December 14?

Libby Roof left in November. Greg Turchetta doesn't start until January 9. Did Libby take the keys with her? Not likely.

Wasn't anyone in the media relations department cross-trained? There is no way that Libby would have been the one to update a routine meeting announcement on the website. That could be assigned way down the food chain.

Maybe no one gave the order to update the homepage. Maybe no one was brave enough to take the initiative and just do it. 

What happens to an employee who sticks her neck up out the foxhole and takes the initiative?

Does the superintendent ever look at the website? Didn't he notice that, with ever passing day, the information was further out-of-date?

Paid Vacation for teacher with fatal DUI ticket

On December 14th I wrote about a Blythewood Middle School teacher, Aja Adams, who was charged with four motor vehicle violations, including hit-and-run and felony DUI involving a death. That earlier article is here.

The Voice of Blythewood dug out more details. Its December 22nd article is here.

The crash occurred on November 29 on Hard Scrabble Road at Clemson Road. Brown apparently collided with a moped about 10:30PM. One man on the moped died; the other was injured.

How did Richland 2 react? The District, according to the Voice of Blythewood, put Brown on paid administrative leave.

WHOA! What kind of deal is that???

So Brown gets arrested on a felony fatal DUI charge and gets a paid vacation for a while?

Sure, she is presumed innocent until found guilty. She supposedly was the only occupant of her car. Did the moped back into her? How much doubt is there that she caused the crash? 

The Voice of Blythewood is still trying to get the trooper's report. What was Brown's BAC? Where was she partying before the crash?

Do you feel it is wrong to put her on "paid" administrative leave?

Why not put her on unpaid administrative leave? Oh, I know. This is where diversity, equity and inclusion come into play!