School board member apologizes for vulgar tirade.
A Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board member who delivered an angry, vulagarity-laced attack on fellow board members at a work session last week, said Monday she has apologized for “letting my emotions to get the best of me.”
“I expressed my feelings in not-the-most professional way,” School Board member LaConda Watson said in an interview Monday when asked about her comments at a Nov. 27 work session on strategic planning and board governance issues. That included a review of each member’s district-paid School Board training and travel expenses.
Watson’s expenses were $5,229.87 for the 2016-17 school year and $1,485 so far for this 2017-18 school year, totaling $6,714.87 and exceeding board member Jim Moore’s $1,325, which was the second-highest amount among current board members.
“Since then I did apologize for any offenses and am just looking forward to getting back to business,” Watson said Monday.
She said she phoned board members and “tried to explain my angle in a calmer way.”
“One of my things is trying to be a highly effective board and getting our students to academic success as well as holding our administrators accountable,” she said about the importance and value of board member training. “I really take what I’m doing seriously. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t put myself in a position to be so vulnerable and sometimes be overly passionate about how I view what our future can be in the city. I just want us to be great. I want our kids to have the best of everything. This is our opportunity to get it right. I want to see us get it right.”
School Board President Daniel Gray sent Watson an email the day after the Nov. 27 work session. Gray provided a copy of that email and documents listing the School Board training and related costs in response to a request from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette after The Leader newspaper’s initial report on the matter.
“Your belligerent, unprofessional, & vulgar language at yesterday’s workshop are inexcusable and in my opinion has done extreme damage to the cohesiveness of our school board,” Gray wrote to Watson in the email that was copied to other board members and to top-level school district administrators.
He told Watson that her words were abusive, demeaning, inconsiderate and selfish and that such disruptive behavior wouldn’t be tolerated by the board if it had come from district teachers and administrators.
“Do you realize how damaging your actions were?” Gray wrote. “The visible grief upon [School Board member Dena] Toney’s face when you called her a ‘b***h?’ The shock on all of our faces as you repeatedly screamed ‘Y’all don’t give a f***!’”
Gray urged Watson to not allow the matter to fester and that she should find a way to reconcile with the others if the board is to operate effectively.
Gray said in an interview Monday that Watson did call Wednesday after she received his email and that she acknowledged that she had acted inappropriately. Watson also insinuated, Gray said, that her outburst was his fault for seeming not to respect her opinions and that she knew more than the rest of the board members because of the training she’s undertaken. He said he didn’t agree with that.
According to records provided by the Jacksonville district from the Arkansas School Boards Association, Watson has 59 hours of training that are provided by or through the association. Moore has 67 hours. Others on the board have anywhere from three hours for the board’s newly appointed Ava Coleman, to 45 hours earned by Marcia Dornblaser. Gray has 31 hours.
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School Board met Monday for its regular monthly meeting. All seven members were present and participated civilly in the board’s routine business of making and seconding motions and voting.