Another example of our School Board violating the law | Eastern North Carolina Now

    This article is offered not as news but as documentation of how our school board violates the spirit of running our schools in a transparent manner. It is an on-going story so we'll just post it and file it away in the archives until an appropriate time.

    Here's the background.

    North Carolina law provides that school boards may go into closed session to discuss confidential personnel information. A strict interpretation of that statute would say that it is proper to discuss only the information that is confidential in closed session. School boards that operate in a transparent way go into closed session to review what is in the personnel file of the individuals being consider for personnel action. That information can include the pre-employment file or the personnel file for current employees. Not all information in a personnel file is confidential. A person's grades, references, complaints, disciplinary actions etc. are confidential. The person's name and "directory information" is not confidential. Directory information typically includes the person's name, job assignment (ex. Teacher, principal etc.) job site assignment (school, department etc.) and the term of employment. Salaries are specifically specified in the law as public information and since last year the salary history if available is public record. The new law also requires that the school board maintain certain records that must be made available as public records. The include the date and type of each promotion, demotion, transfer, suspension, separation or other change in position classification. It further provides that a "general description of the reasons for each promotion that a public employee receives and a "record of the final decision of the public employer setting forth the specific acts or ommissions that are the basis of any dismissal. Click here to read more on the current law.

    Our point here is that it would appear that the public has a right to know who is being hired and the general reasons if it is a promotion, fired (dismissed) and the record of the final decision and for that matter it would appear to us that the intent of the law is that personnel action that are taken in public session must disclose what the action of the board actually is.

    On December 20, 2010 the Beaufort County Board of Education held its regular monthly meeting. The agenda provided that a closed session would be held for the purpose of discussing confidential personnel information. They came back out of closed session and approved a "modified" personnel list. Some of the specific entries on the list received split votes.

    Now here's the point. What you will see below is a video of what the board did. Also you should know that the "Personnel List" the board refers to was not released until after the meeting and then only the "Modified List" was released. Click here to download that "Modified List."

    Remember now, you have two sources of information. Those two pieces of information (the video and the list) are all the public has.

    Now tell us please who they approved and who they did not approve.

    We would contend that you can't do it. We would contend that you don't have enough information, as furnished by the board to the public, to determine the name, position, assignment or if a promotion or dismissal the general reason for those actions. So it would appear to us that this is yet another violation of the Open Meetings and Public Records law.

    And you might be interested to know that just within the last year this same School Board had an attorney from the N. C. School Boards Association present a webinar on the Open Meetings and Public Records laws. In the presentation she specifically said: "personnel action by reference to a list is a violation of the law unless the public has the list being referenced at the time the board acts on it."

    Perhaps the Beaufort County School Board believes it is getting by with these shenanigans, but we have news for them. They are not. Each time they do something like this they are adding one more rock in their boat. Eventually that boat is going to sink.



    Delma Blinson writes the "Teacher's Desk" column for our friend in the local publishing business: The Beaufort Observer. His concentration is in the area of his expertise - the education of our youth. He is a former teacher, principal, superintendent and university professor.