NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Several contentious policy changes that have been in the queue for months were resolved at Tuesday night’s New Hanover County Board of Education meeting, as the board enters a new era of shorter meetings — at least, that’s the hope.
READ MORE: NHCS drafts new policy for meeting prayers; controversial ethical code, curriculum also discussed
One of the first actions of the current board of education in January was instituting agenda review meetings, modeled after the county commissioners. The intention was to make meetings more efficient; it has yet to do so.
Instead, agenda review meetings, which take place a week before the regular board meeting, often take just as long as board meetings, extending to four, five and six hours.
Changes to the organization of meetings are supported by the entire board, along with parents and community members that have complained about the long meetings; however, Vice-Chair Pat Bradford was the most vocal about the meeting format during her campaign. She was charged with heading the ad-hoc committee process.
The committee has spent the summer providing feedback on how to better utilize the agenda review meetings.
Tuesday, the board approved many of the committee’s suggestions.
The new rules dedicate the agenda review for the purpose of asking questions and gaining information, while the board meeting is intended for action items. As such, the information portion that takes place at regular meetings, along with committee reports and presentations by the superintendent, chairman and board members, will move to the agenda review.
Consent items, such as MOUs, are also intended to be reviewed at the agenda review; a majority vote would be needed to pull off an item for a separate discussion and vote at a regular meeting.
However, the board will still have the option to vote on items at the agenda review, something Kraybill pushed against.
“If we are expected to vote and it doesn’t show up in the [agenda item] description, then I’m going to call foul that we should not be voting,” Kraybill said.
No restriction was put on voting at the agenda review meetings.
Under the passed recommendations, closed sessions can occur at agenda reviews or before the regular board meeting, but a session during the regular meeting would require a majority vote. Closed sessions have been held after public comment in the past, but recently the board has been doing them at the end of their meeting.
The board also voted to restrict the regular meeting time to four hours. Any business left incomplete would be postponed to the next meeting. A person will also be charged with keeping time for each item of the agenda; a majority vote is needed to extend discussion, otherwise a vote or postponement would be necessary.
Finally moving forward
The policies regarding meeting invocations and the board’s code of ethics have been sore points for months, but Tuesday night both issues were brought to a conclusion — but not without some dispute.
The board again was heated over the code of ethics policy, which has been reverted back to the policy committee twice now without revisions. Proposed changes would allow board members to lose privileges per majority vote if they violate the code of ethics.
Board members Hugh McManus, Stephanie Kraybill and Stephanie Walker all spoke to their concern that the policy is aimed at silencing minority opinions on the board.
For each of the three speakers, either Vice-Chair Pat Bradford and Josie Barnhart issued a point of order. They accused the speaking board members of making personal attacks because they referred to their support for the amended code of ethics.
Walker described the points of order as direct examples of silencing dissent.
“I am discouraged by the fact that I feel there are members of the board who would like to silence those of us who disagree,” McManus said. “So, as I was saying, I was elected by the public. I have a right, short of cursing you out or threatening you, as any board member to voice my opinion.”
Ultimately, Melissa Mason was the compromising board member on several votes, including the code of ethics policy amendments. She moved to strike the last three paragraphs of the policy regarding disciplinary actions against a board member who violated the code of ethics.
The motion passed 4-3, Bradford, Barnhart and Chair Pete Wildeboer dissenting, and the policy was approved only with changes suggested by the North Carolina School Boards Association. Those include refraining from conflicts of interest and modeling integrity to parents, employees and vendors along with students.
The board also approved the new policy governing opening invocations. It was drafted following an ACLU complaint claiming the district was in violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits state actors from promoting, sponsoring, or endorsing any religious tradition.
Missing from the approved language though was a contested provision allowing board members to provide an invocation in the event no speaker is present. Some board members, namely Kraybill, were uncomfortable with the appearance of the board endorsing a certain religion from the dais.
Legal counsel Jonathon Vogel has maintained this would not be in violation of the law, as a board member invocation is only a problem when it becomes a pattern.
The provision in the policy was removed in a 6-1 vote, Bradford dissenting.
The tension between Bradford, Barnhart and Kraybill extended beyond the code of ethics conversation later in the meeting, when Kraybill requested the board allow her to pursue an open position on the North Carolina School Boards Association board of directors. She asked to add the item to the agenda at the opening of the meeting.
The position would allow Kraybill to represent Southeastern North Carolina in policy recommendations and advice for school boards, along with the opportunity to confer with government officials on education needs.
Bradford and Barnhart said they could not support the request because it came as a surprise.
“The rules apply to thee and not me,” Bradford said, describing Kraybill’s request compared to her past statements discouraging “surprise” agenda additions.
Kraybill clarified the request should not have been a surprise, as the board chair and superintendent received a notification of the opening in August. Still, Barnhart and Bradford were the holdouts in the vote to grant Kraybill’s request to apply for the position.
More thwarted policies
Several other policies were reviewed by the board, though they were either held back from passage or given the green light without solicited changes.
An attempt to change the rules for when the board chair must add a requested agenda item to the meeting agenda failed 3-4, Mason’s vote the deciding factor. The current policy charges the chairperson and superintendent to place items on the agenda within two board meetings, if any two board members agree on the additional item.
Bradford, Barnhart and Wildeboer voted to increase the allowance from two to four meetings, though Walker and Kraybill, who voted against along with McManus and Mason, said the move would be another way to diminish board members’ voices.
Several policies, including staff and student relations and surveys of students, were passed by consensus. Two that were pulled off — including changes to public comment format and process for inspection of instructional materials — were postponed to the next meeting due to time constraints.
Two policies were up for first reading, meaning only for discussion and not to be approved. The first, on employee fraternization, will move on to second reading, while standards for professional conduct was reverted back to the policy committee per a motion from Kraybill.
The standards for professional conduct a new policy is tailored as an easy-to-find and understand synthesis of guidelines already encoded in the NHCS rulebook — except for one piece. It states employees shall “ensure dignity and nondiscrimination in schools by not teaching students or compelling students, teachers, administrators, or other school employees to affirm or profess belief” in concepts related to racism or sexism.
Such concepts include affirming one race or sex is inherently superior, or one race or sex is responsible for actions committed in the past. The text also prevents statements promoting violent overthrow of the government or that the rule of law does not exist.
The language is direct copy from a stalled bill in the General Assembly and that section in the policy amendments has an unknown origin; district representatives were not able to confirm who suggested or wrote the language.
“I just think we need to have a more thorough conversation about that and give board members the opportunity to make official comments before we move on to the second reading in November because this is a big one,” Kraybill said.
The board member’s motion to send the policy back to committee for further examination passed 5-2, Bradford and Wildeboer dissenting.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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