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follows all procedures in a lawful manner and is always careful to confirm the legality of its actions and decisions before moving forward on them. Although board members do not always agree on every decision, they work together to come to solutions that are best for the district’s staff and students. When the vote on an issue is not unanimous, the board stands unified in the actions taken. Board members make it their goal to be transparent with the school community to the greatest extent possible and also make it a priority to obtain community input in decision making.

ASBA School Law seminar available to watch online

School board members who missed ASBA’s School Law seminar can watch a recording of the event for free online, and can receive six hours of boardsmanship training credit for $155.

The seminar is available at https:// www.arsba.org/article/658180. To register to receive training credit, go to that same site.

Coverage of the event begins on page 22 of this issue of Report Card.

The following topics were covered:

• New Superintendent Hiring and Employment: A Practical Guide for Legal Compliance • Lessons from Sexual Misconduct Investigations: Is your District Accidentally Making Students Vulnerable and the District Liable? • Stay Safe: Student Searches and the 4thAmendment • Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse: Board Members, This Includes YOU Now! • Global Teacher Recruitment: What School Districts Need to Know About Immigration Law

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VIRTUALLY UNANIMOUS. Almost all the members of the Delegate Assembly voted to separate from the NSBA Dec. 8 after all board members voted to do so. At the time, 17 other states had voted to separate.

Arkansas school board members made history at the Annual Conference Dec. 8 as first the board of directors and then the Delegate Assembly voted to withdraw from the National School Boards Association.

The vote by the Delegate Assembly was almost unanimous after ASBA Executive Director Dr. Tony Prothro explained the reasoning behind the resolution. At the time, 17 other states had already withdrawn from the association, and others were considering it.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was a letter sent by NSBA leadership to President Biden last Sept. 29 asking federal agencies including the FBI to review if violence and threats against school officials violate domestic terrorism and hate crimes laws. The letter came after contentious school board meetings have occurred regarding maskwearing.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a memo Oct. 4 that he was directing the FBI and U.S. attorneys to meet with local and state leaders to discuss strategies for responding to threats. The memo said the Justice Department would later announce measures to address what it called “the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.” Critics said the NSBA and the agency were trying to squelch parents’ free speech.

Prothro told delegates that the letter had been sent without the involvement of state school boards associations or most of the NSBA’s board of directors.

“ASBA firmly believes in local control, and it should be the local board and administration to determine what if any security measures are needed for protection of all parties involved,” Prothro said.

Prothro told delegates that the letter was the latest in a series of missteps that led ASBA to withhold its dues, which were supposed to be paid July 1. Those included financial failures that had forced the NSBA to sell its headquarters and then lease part of it back, a move Prothro likened to being in “fiscal distress.” The failure of NSBA to communicate with its members about the letter was just the latest example of the national group’s lack of transparency. Also, NSBA dues are high relative to the services rendered, and in some

Board, delegates vote to split with NSBA

A letter asking for federal help against parents caught ways NSBA duplicates member states’ services and competes with them. “I and the ASBA board feel that we everyone by surprise, but it have moved from being a supporter to was only the latest misstep by assuming the role of an enabler for the the national organization. inherent issues within NSBA,” he said. On the plus side, Prothro said the conversations held with other states through NSBA and the perspectives gained from those interactions are valuable, and many school board members enjoy the national annual conference. In other news, 100 percent of Arkansas’ school boards are ASBA members, all districts and some cooperatives are involved in ASBA’s workers’ compensation program, and the membership in ASBA’s risk management program has increased to 178 participants, Prothro told the Delegate Assembly.

How to let the public speak

The NSBA’s letter wasn’t the only political consideration addressed during the Annual Conference. In one wellattended pre-conference workshop held Dec. 8, Bentonville School District President Eric White led a discussion about how to handle difficult community issues such as mask mandates. The session was titled, “Board Meetings Under Attack: Best Practices for Board Meetings During Good Times and Bad.”