Last night the Huntsville City School Board of Education violated their own policy on the Selection of School, Facility, and/or Property Name (Policy 2.9, presented September 5, 2013) by concluding the process and voting on the new names approximately three weeks before they were allowed to do so.
On September 5, 2013, the board met and discussed during their work session a new policy entitled, “Selection of School, Facility, and/or Property Name” (Policy 2.9). This policy was necessary to ensure that the process of receiving new names for schools would be as open to the public as possible. Laurie McCaulley, who was at that time serving as the School Board President, assured the public present that evening that the public would have every opportunity to “have input on these changes.”
Here is the text of the policy:
As you can see, in the interest of receiving public input on a matter that the school board and Dr. Wardynski should be well aware raises public interest, the naming of a school, they clearly stated in their policy that “A minimum of sixty (60) days from the date of public notice shall be given before action is taken by the Board.”
In addition, on September 5th, Ms. McCaulley clearly stated that no action would be taken by the board concerning the naming/re-naming of schools until the first board work session in November, or on November 7th. As you can see at the end of The Huntsville Times article reporting on that meeting, “The committees will report back to the board Nov. 7.” During this meeting, they made no distinction between the committees that were naming new schools and the committees renaming existing schools.
In fact, if you read The Huntsville Times article on the matter, it clearly indicates that, “Johnson High will move to a new campus that will also include a middle school. Those two schools are on the list of schools being considered for name changes.” At no time on September 5th did the board draw a distinction between schools being named and schools being renamed. They actually spoke of all of the schools as simply being renamed.
Assuming that the first date of public notice took place on Thursday, September 5, 2013, the sixty (60) days would not have expired before board action until Sunday, November 3, 2013.
Last night the board took the report from the committee on the naming of the schools a mere forty-three (43) days after giving public notice.
The board, therefore, has violated its own policies in concluding the naming of the schools last night seventeen (17) days before their self-imposed deadline.
Why?
You know I often tell my students that the only question that actually matters in nearly any discussion is, “Why?” And it’s the one we’re least equipped to answer. In this case however, I do have a theory.
The board was receiving political heat over this decision, and they don’t like political heat or pressure. Despite their claims to the contrary, they actually do prefer it when the board room is filled with nothing but employees whom they control.
That was why they held between 10 and 15 seats in a standing room only crowd last night for TFAers. (There are, by the way, only about 50 seats in the room that aren’t always taken by school district employees.)
That was why they kept the general public waiting outside until 5:15pm.
That was why they instigated a new policy of requiring all questions from the public during the work session part of the meeting to be submitted in writing (that they then refused to read out loud).
That was why Dr. Robinson decided that it would be a good idea to berate Johnson parents for supposedly caring more about the name of the school rather than the test scores when she said, “My challenge would be to those folks who have been spending a lot of time focused on the name that you might want to put that same focus on the test scores.”
That was why Ms. McCaulley seemed to have such difficulty reading citizens’ questions or putting forth a coherent statement on her position.
That was why Mr. Blair seemed incapable of doing anything other than demand complete silence from a crowd of interested citizens.
That was why Dr. Wardynski asked security to remove the few non-employees who managed to get seats in the room.
Wardynski, Blair and Robinson are all three looking ahead to their own political futures, and they decided that the naming question had embarrassed them long enough.
Mr. Culbreath’s only contribution was to claim, by holding up a folder that he “had received only a few hours ago,” that he just didn’t understand how anyone could claim that this process had been anything other than transparent.
Well, Mr. Culbreath, when the board refuses to follow their own rules, the process is significantly less transparent than it should be, don’t you think?
Only Mr. Birney seemed genuinely concerned about the process that they were pushing through when he shared that Mae Jemison didn’t appreciate her southern heritage by pointing out, “You may have the possibility of Dr. Jemison refusing this as she has publicly declaimed the fact that she was born in the south. She resented that heritage.” Mr. Birney was the lone dissenting voice on this matter last night.
Thank you, Mr. Birney.
This is just one more example of this board and this superintendent doing exactly what they want to do in the way they want to do it without consideration of what the community wants. They’ve done it with Special Education students. They’ve done it with the naming of schools. They’ve done it with the location of schools.
Next up, they’ll be doing it with the rezoning of schools.
It’s time for all of them to be sent packing.
So, what do you do when the policy makers violate their own polices?
Shine a light at least. After that, honestly, I’m not sure.
Here’s the thing: Wardynski and the board know they can count on their official stenographers in the media putting a positive spin on all of this and dutifully avoiding calling them to account. So they’ll get away with it, just like they always do.
You should really check out the “South Huntsville Civic Association” page on Facebook. The comments below the post concerning the Butler closure/name-changing shenanigans provide some really, really damning insight.
Those tapes are very, very interesting. Isn’t there something illegal in the way the board conducted their business regarding the school name situation? If not illegal, certainly inappropriate. Won’t it be interesting to see how they present the new school zoning map? W marches on…
What does the do when students/teachers/principal/support personnel violate BOE policy(s)?
We get fired! Or expelled!
BINGO! Are they above the law? The laws they make?
Typo, should read : What do they ( superintendent and BOE) do when students/teachers/principal/support personnel violate BOE policy(s)?
When rulemakers break their own rules, they are either incompetent or dishonest … either way, they destroy their credibility and trust. The incompetent apologize and correct their mistake … the dishonest continue to abuse their office until forced out by better men. Which will it be?
Just saw this article. Do you not see the legal dance here? The board would have had to wait until Nov. 7 IF they were RENAMING a school. We have been told in the meeting announcing the new name that they are NAMING A NEW SCHOOL and that Johnson and Butler are being CLOSED. Naming a new school – according to the policy you posted here – does not require a 60 day waiting period. That is specifically attached to renaming an existing school. Semantics are everything.No rules broken, just circumvented.
Next up – rezoning that moves some Butler students to Grissom and moves some Grissom student to Huntsville High. It will be tied to the Census data that requires redrawing voting districts which are directly tied to schools zones.
Ms. B.,
I agree that semantics are important. However, at no point during the September 5th board meeting did anyone on the board ever state that they were closing Johnson and Butler and opening a new school. As I linked to in the Huntsville Times article, “The committees will report back on November 7th.” She stated that all of the school naming issues would be addressed at that point. There was absolutely no distinction made between naming new schools and renaming existing schools during the meeting.
The claim that Johnson and Butler weren’t being renamed but rather closed didn’t come to light until after McCaulley begin receiving political pressure over the naming of the school. At no point during the September 5th meeting did they state that there was a difference. They specifically said that there would be 60 days for all of the discussions to take place.
So, if they didn’t actually break the loophole that they wrote into their policy (I still believe that they did), they did deceive the public into thinking that the vote wouldn’t happen until November 7th.
I know many people who attended the October 17th meeting, when they actually did vote on the name, who still believed that the voting wouldn’t happen until November 7th.
They changed the date to suit their own purposes.
Concerning rezoning: I hope that it’s tied to something like census data that is outside of the board’s control, but I agree that the moving of the new Grissom to the west side of the parkway was done so that Butler students could be placed at Grissom, and not just at the new Jemison High School as McCaulley stated on October 17th.
Either way, we clearly cannot trust what the board says at board meetings, which is the primary point of the post.
“They changed the date to suit their own purposes. ” They changed the date to show us who was boss. They changed the date to punish us for daring to protest. They changed the date to punish us for daring ask for Laurie McCaulley’s resignation. They changed the date to tell us the STFU and STFD. Excuse my language.
“Either way, we clearly cannot trust what the board says at board meetings, which is the primary point of the post.” They have betrayed the public trust. All of the them. It’s not the first time. Will this be the last time?
” However, at no point during the September 5th board meeting did anyone on the board ever state that they were closing Johnson and Butler and opening a new school. As I linked to in the Huntsville Times article, “The committees will report back on November 7th.” She stated that all of the school naming issues would be addressed at that point. There was absolutely no distinction made between naming new schools and renaming existing schools during the meeting.”
I would be willing to bet no one told the DoJ Johnson would be closing either, because that’s the only way they got approval to build a new Grissom, was to build a new Johnson. Not a closed Johnson. A NEW JOJ. Just like they built a new Lee, a new Huntsville High, and now a new Grissom and a new J.O.Johnson.
What does the BOE do when students/teachers/principal/support personnel violate BOE policy(s)?
This whole scenario reminds me of another great semantics fraud spoken under oath: “That depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” I know how proud they must be … so smart to fool the stupid public who trust them to be honest.
It ought to be against the lawyer elected officials to betray the public trust.