5 minute read
Southern Tire Mart
from September 2022
by ASBA
enter into executive session is to discuss employment of a specific person – but never a general policy, staff position or salary amount. The two warned attendees to be careful of what they say in executive session because it can be used against them in court. Stewart said in one current court case his firm is involved with, the entirety of the deposition with school board members involved asking them what had been discussed in executive session. Garner said she had seen school districts lose lawsuits after board members were questioned under oath about what was said in executive session. She warned that school boards cannot actually vote in executive session. One school board wrestled with filling a board vacancy until 10:30 p.m. and then forgot to return to open session to make the official vote. They later realized that too many days had passed and they had lost the ability to make the appointment. Garner also warned school boards that remain in the boardroom for executive session to ensure departing community members take their belongings with them. Patrons have left recording devices at their seats while the board meets.
Occasionally, school board members will enter executive session for another reason, such as demotion. This can be complicated because teachers – including coaches – are covered by the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act. In the case of a coach who’s losing too many games, the evaluator must be qualified under the state’s teacher evaluation system and must have extensive knowledge of the sport. Few individuals in the district – a superintendent or a principal, perhaps – will meet those qualifications. They’ll have to attend practices to
TEDDY STEWARD, an attorney with Bequette, Billingsley and Kees, presents a seminar about school board issues along with ASBA Staff Attorney Kristen Garner.
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observe the coach and then give them a chance to improve, which can take up to two years. And the coach can’t be moved to a lower-profile sport, even at the same salary, because that would involve a loss of power and prestige.
“It is not that it is impossible,” Garner said. “It is that it is too costly in terms of allocation of resources and scarce personnel to be practical.”
Garner and Stewart discussed ways school board members can avoid running afoul of Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act, which allows members of the public to request documents and other communications, including electronic kinds. Board members can discuss school business only in an open public meeting with proper notification of the press, which means they can’t discuss it in person or by text or email. Superintendents should blind copy board members when they communicate with more than one at a time to prevent a law-violating discussion from occurring.
Three decades of experience
In another session, ASBA President William Campbell discussed board members’ roles, responsibilities and best practices and shared stories from his nearly 30 years on the McGehee School Board. He said that when he was elected, he received a phone call that night about a cheerleader situation. On one occasion, a teacher dismissal hearing that began at about 7 p.m. didn’t end until 5 a.m. the next morning. The teacher was accused of inappropriate behavior with students, but supportive members of the public were in attendance. Campbell said the district lost the case because it had sent the teacher a letter saying he had 10 days to respond but didn’t include a date. But the next year, the teacher did the same thing and was fired. On another occasion, his district made national news when a student filed a racial discrimination lawsuit when she and another were named co-valedictorians. The story became the subject of an internet petition that published the school board members’ phone numbers. He said he received about 385 phone calls at work.
Campbell said in his 30 years on the school board, he had participated in many superintendent hirings. He said school boards need a well-defined procedure for finding and hiring a new one. He warned them that the talent pool has shrunk after the COVID pandemic and encouraged them to groom someone in their district to be ready to take their current superintendent’s place.
He said the relationship between superintendents and board members should be marked by mutual respect and that board members must give the superintendent freedom, but they also must hold them accountable when they make a mistake. He said the board and staff can’t make progress faster than the public will support.
“Communication is a two-way proposition. We have to inform the public. We need to seek the input from the public. Then we need to listen to the public’s needs, concerns and ideas,” he said.
In another session, Dr. Greg Murry, former Conway School superintendent, gave a presentation on budgeting and school finances. He said he can tell a lot about what a person values by their calendar and their checkbook or credit card statements. The same is true for a school district – it spends its money on what it values.
What’s most important, he said, are students, but to take care of them, a district also must take care of its finances.
Murry said a budget is a financial plan that “reflects the values and culture of the organization,” but at the end of the year the school district’s final spending totals won’t match what was in its plan, just as they don’t in an individual household. While school districts receive funding from a variety of sources, school boards are primarily concerned with three: the teacher salary fund; the operating fund covering classified employee wages, buses and other expenses; and the debt service fund. Those three funds comprise the district’s operating budget, which must be approved in September.
