School board remains at odds
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on November 21, 2014 1:46 PM
Tempers and tense moments dominated a second called meeting of the Board of Education held Thursday night to discuss the hiring of an interim superintendent, with the board maintaining its 4-3 split on a contract that will pay Dr. Sandra McCullen $95,955, or $13,707 a month through the end of the school year.
The divide in the group was even more noticeable this week than last, which had come on the heels of Superintendent Dr. Steven Taylor announcing his retirement effective Dec. 1. At the last meeting, board member Rick Pridgen made a motion asking Mrs. McCullen, associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction, to reconsider her own retirement plans and take over as interim superintendent through June 30.
The move split the board, with board members Arnold Flowers, Eddie Radford and Chris West in opposition and questioning the hasty process.
When the board convened this week for the express purpose of approving the contract, the fracture was even more evident.
The minority contingent maintained they had no personal issues with Mrs. McCullen and would lend her their full support in the role.
The problem, Radford said, was the appearance that the matter had been decided in advance of the previous meeting, calling it an "open and shut case."
"The only thing that I would like to request is that we have a more transparent idea of what's going on so that we can know what's happening," he said. "I think that we didn't really get a good idea of what's going on. I think the process this time could have been a little bit better."
Board member Dr. Dwight Cannon bristled at the insinuation.
"Transparency in leadership, I really don't think I can allow that to be said without allowing my input because I don't know of a more transparent leadership than we have in Dr. Taylor," he said. "I just think that's just not fair."
Radford reiterated the sentiment that it felt like the issue "was already arranged."
Cannon cautioned Radford against the inference that there was a "meeting behind the meeting."
West said he would have preferred to have had more input into the selection process.
Pat Burden, the newest member of the board, said she felt the handling of the situation was no different than any other issues and she did not understand why anyone questioned the process.
Flowers questioned the legality of the move, which comes just before the Dec. 1 meeting, when incumbents Flowers, West and Pridgen will be sworn in, along with new board member Jennifer Strickland. He cited a state statute that says that a board cannot hire a superintendent when a person on the board has lost his or her seat and the elected replacement has not been seated yet. Board attorney Jack Edwards said the law dealt more with extending a current superintendent's contract.
Flowers said he still had doubts about the legality of the board's action, especially since the board make-up, and possibly the outcome of a vote, would be different in less than two weeks.
"If we start out with Dr. McCullen and if the board's 4-3 in opposition of what is going down, then we're going to start out wrong and (we've) only got seven months to get it right," he said, before making a motion to table the vote pending further legal counsel.
The motion failed, with the same 4-3 tally.
Flowers pursued the ethical and legal aspects, hinting that the board members may have been polled about their stance in advance of last week's vote, which would be in violation of the state's Open Meetings Law.
"The board members and Dr. Taylor know if the board's been polled and a decision made before we came here," he said. "I'm not accusing anybody of doing that. But you know what you've done, if you did it or you didn't do it."
Pridgen defended his motion to hire Mrs. McCullen. Grantham said that there had been nothing underhanded done in the hiring of an interim superintendent. The action was taken in the interest of time and to allow the board to conduct a detailed search for a permanent replacement, he said.
"As far as the 4-3 vote, those who know, I don't mean anything derogatory about the new board member coming on, but to me it makes more sense if you're trying to have continuity and you want to vote on who you're going to have as interim superintendent, that swing vote on that issue should be someone that's familiar with the system, not someone that's just going to vote however someone tells them to vote because that's the only way you can vote, really, if you don't know what's going on," Grantham said.
With that, he made a motion to adjourn.
Parents in the audience said afterward they were disappointed, as they had come prepared to address the board.
Kim Dean said she represented a "growing number of parents" up in arms about the proposed salary for the interim, particularly at a time when the district supposedly has "no money."