NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A school board member was brought to the brink of censure at a special hearing on Monday over alleged policy and confidentiality breaches.
The New Hanover County Board of Education voted to instruct the board chair to remove Republican David Perry from committee assignments for four months. The vote was 5-2, with Tim Merrick, who was censured in April, and Perry dissenting.
“If you’re just going to muzzle me, go ahead and do it,” Perry said preceding the vote.
The verdict came after a hearing that was called to discuss Perry’s recent disclosure of information from a closed session with a parent. Chris Sutton — education activist and former Republican school board candidate — was the parent and waived his confidentiality rights under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act to allow the board to discuss openly what occurred between him and Perry.
In a video posted over the weekend, Sutton explained he entered his son, who has medical issues, into the lottery system for the year-round Eaton Elementary School, due to wanting a more consistent schedule. When his application was denied, Sutton then appealed to the board, who decided to hold a hearing on the matter. The board’s vote on the hearing was during closed session at the board’s June 24 agenda review meeting; before the meeting ended, Perry sent the date and time of the hearing to Sutton.
Bradford, who called for Monday’s special meeting and put forth the motion to remove Perry’s committee assignments, said his actions exhibit a “rebellious spirit” and constitute violations of policy 2120 (code of ethics) and 2125 (confidential information).
Perry apologized for the breach of information, but said he was only trying to help a worried parent. Sutton’s need for an answer was urgent, as the year-round calendar starts on July 16, and despite the district being within the 30 days required to respond to Sutton, Perry said he didn’t see anything wrong with notifying Sutton of the hearing date.
He further claimed he didn’t need a punitive measure, like committee revocations, because he had already proven himself by refusing to give Sutton more information on the board’s discussion, despite Sutton “begging” him to do so.
“I told him nothing — I kept my promise from that meeting and I learned my lesson,” Perry said.
However, Perry’s list of infractions extended beyond sharing the hearing’s date and time with Sutton. In Sutton’s video, Perry reported how the board voted on Sutton’s request in closed session, making another confidentiality breach.
When Perry tried to defend his actions by saying the board attorneys signed off, one of them, Brian Kromke, said the FERPA release that was provided didn’t cover board members’ closed session votes.
“I’m sorry that I did not communicate that to you, but that release was very specific,” Kromke said. “It allowed FERPA-related confidential information for Mr. Sutton and his son.”
Board members also brought forth other policy and code of conduct violations, namely the profane language Perry’s issued on a hot mic — including referring to board members as “jackasses” and saying some families were “sucking off welfare” — and aggressive rhetoric used on social media.
Port City Daily asked board chair Melissa Mason if the intention of Monday’s meeting was a discussion of a “pattern” of behavior, rather than just the confidentiality breach.
“It culminated in the confidentiality breach, but there have been missteps along the way that have been addressed,” Mason said.
In the meeting, she said she has addressed Perry’s infractions multiple times with him, indicating her strategy was to reprimand individually. As asked, Perry had apologized for the profanity and has acknowledged he needs to work on his language; Port City Daily asked if this satisfied Mason and if she would have brought forth a discussion or stripped Perry of his committee assignments, as she did prior to Merrick’s censure.
“It was coming to a point where it needed to be addressed by the full board, where discussions that I had with him had no longer proved effective, and so it needed to be not the chair,” she said.
Despite the board’s collective disapproval for Perry’s actions, the majority disfavored Merrick’s motion to censure Perry. Bradford motioned for the chair to draft a resolution to “strongly disapprove,” to which Merrick asked how that would be different than a censure. The board attorneys said the resolution would have the same practical effect.
Mason tried to adjourn the meeting, but the attempt failed and Merrick pushed on the censure further. He cited comments she made during the meeting about treating each board member equally.
Mason said it was “no secret” that Perry supported her run for office and she thought he was an asset to the board, but called her attempts to reroute him onto the right path “ineffective.”
“I cannot have a standard for one board member and not another,” she said.
Because he was censured on similar grounds (breaking confidentiality), Merrick thought Perry should face similar consequences. Judy Justice, also censured in 2022 on sharing personnel information, agreed and called Perry’s situation a “proper” use of the tool. Bradford would also make up the trio that voted in favor of the censure.
“I can’t be a party to a double standard,” Bradford said.
However, the motion failed to gain a fourth supporter.
Board member Josie Barnhart said the difference between Merrick and Perry was that Merrick tried to evade his punishment of committee revocation, leading to his censure. Perry said he would prefer the censure (which doesn’t carry any inherent consequence) to a committee assignment loss; he also said he would take back his vote to censure Merrick if he could, citing better judgment in hindsight.
As for Mason, she called the censure “a bit much.” Port City Daily asked her to expand on this reasoning after the meeting.
“I think it depends on the nature of the offenses,” she said. “The same type of offensive offenses occur, I would expect the board to bring it forward again, to address it.”
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