FC School Board members reminded of roles in district
Former FCPD Chief to provide security for schools
Members of the Forrest City School Board were reminded of their roles as board members during a training session at Thursday’s meeting.
Kristen Craig Garner, staff attorney with the Arkansas School Boards Association, presented “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” to the board in regard to what is expected of most board members.
Garner provided the board with a brief history of public education in Arkansas as well as the establishment of school boards and how the state is able to take over boards in dire situations.
Garner explained that a modern school board operates “very differently” than when the boards were first established.
"They directly employed and supervised the teacher," said Garner who added most districts only had one-room school houses originally and most board members paid for teachers, supplies and more out of their own pockets.
According to Garner, things changed due to transportation improvements, district consolidations and the need for professional management structures for the now larger schools.
"That is where we get our principals and superintendents," said Garner. "That also means each school district now has the ghost and bones of previous school districts."
"Unfortunately, many people still run for the 'old job' of 50 or 60 years ago," said Garner.
She told the board that one of their main duties is to act as a fair and impartial jury.
"By law, the board must serve as an impartial jury for student discipline, such as an expulsion and employee termination hearings," said Garner.
Garner warned that board members volunteering too often in school districts may prevent them from being unbiased due to getting to know staff or teachers and forming biased opinions through volunteering.
"Being a board member is the ultimate form of volunteerism," said Garner. "Y'all are an elected elite who only can provide critical functions as defined by law. Volunteerism, which fosters and creates safe and board member relationships, is inconsistent with statutory duties and creates conflicts of interest with respect of duties. No one but a board member can participate in statutory duties of a school board."
She also stressed the importance of board members keeping themselves unbiased in their position, adding that while even though they are elected officials, oftentimes they need to explain to residents who approach them with complaints that it is not something they should talk about.
"When you give folks the opportunity to complain, you give them a false sense of comfort that you can solve their problem when it isn't your job to solve their problem," explained Garner. "That satisfaction, when they unload on you, is a false satisfaction and it hurts the school district because the people who need to know the problem are denied that knowledge. "You have to direct complaints away from the board to the trained supervisors," continued Garner, who added if the district had a paid staff member to handle an area of the district, then that paid staff member should get the complaint.
"The school board isn't part of the chain of command, except for the superintendent," explained Garner. "People are going to try to involve you. You can't educate the entire community. It is on you, the board member, to create the boundary."
She stated the best way to do so is to politely stop conversations and lead the person with the issue to the proper chain of command while explaining why they cannot have the conversation.
"The very best way to present this is if you approach it from a more humble standpoint of 'I didn't know this either but it turns out…'", said Garner. "If it isn't your chain, don't yank on it."
Garner told board members they should spend more time
“People are going to try to involve you.You can’t educate the entire community. It is on you, the board member, to create the boundary.”
– Kristen Craig Garner, ASBA Staff Attorney
with the superintendent on matters rather than with individuals or staff members.
"Everything I'm telling you not to do used to be ok to do and how boards used to operate," explained Garner. "That changed in 1985 with the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act."
She explained that now, generally, it takes written documentation "and lots of it" to settle job problems in education.
Garner said employment in the education field works very differently than in the "real world" and explained the differences in right to work laws and contracts that go into educational hiring.
She also stated that because of this it was important for the board to trust their superintendent's judgment when it comes to hiring and firing employees.
"You should empower your superintendents," said Garner. "She needs to know if she builds a case you will support it. They know taking a termination to a board is a big ask."
Garner said the board is in place to hold people accountable and if there is a conflict of bias to not be involved with the process.
"The superintendent needs to
know there is no one senior enough, so well beloved or held in such high esteem by the community that they can't be held accountable," said Garner.
She said if board members are doing their jobs correctly, they more often than not are not making a lot of people happy.
"It is a very thankless and misunderstood task," she said.
Garner also stated that frequent visits to schools as board members disrupt educators even if they are not doing anything wrong to start with.
She compared it to everyone braking when they see a police officer even though they may not be not speeding.
"It is a reflex," said Garner. "You being there isn't going to add value."
She told the board that if members did want to visit campuses they should do it as a group, inform school administration prior to the visit, all while staying "aggressively ignorant" about student or employee misconduct.
Garner also gave other tips which included staying neutral in their positions on social media, how to handle staff grievances, speaking as a district with a unified voice, not creating divisions within the board and proper executive session protocols.
"You cannot be in executive session if a board member wants to complain about tar on the roof," said Garner.
Garner also stated that while not illegal, board members should leave executive sessions if a board member brings forward a staff matter with intent to fire said staff when their administrator hasn't been made aware of the issue.
She also stated it could be considered a felony for board members to share information that was discussed in a legitimate executive session.
"The board is not an amateur school administrator," said Garner. "They are not a place for the community to appeal to after being told no. Board members should be like a volunteer fire department. They should have lots of training and practice and technical knowledge but mostly sitting around waiting for there to be a need for what they do."
Garner offered tips on the best ways to help frustrated board members and board members who had gone "rogue."
She said rogue members frequently act with a willful disregard to the rules or board authority, routinely used implied authority to push an idea or agenda, micromanagers of staff paid jobs, and often motivated by a desire to gain and exercise personal power, rather than a desire to advance the mission of public education.
Garner said there is no law in place to remove a 'bad' school board member and that the best way to handle rouge board members is through continued training for both board and staff, corrective strategies such as adopting formal procedures for meetings, adopting an ethics policy, staying polite during "bad behavior" and publicly acknowledging "good behavior."
"If you cannot trust your rogue to keep executive session content confidential, then stop having executive sessions and say publicly why," added Garner.
Garner also noted while rogue board members may cause administration issues, it is not the administration's problem to solve.
She said boards with rouge members should keep a united front and do their best to minimize the rouge's influence to survive that member's term of office.
In other business, the board transferred money that had not been spent, but was dedicated to projects to this year's operating budget in the amount of $2.7 million.
Superintendent Dr. Tiffany Hardrick said she wanted to be clear that the district did not have an excess of rollover but it was from funding in which projects were not completed by the end of year.
"We have had our parking lots, some flooring, and a new bus that has yet to come in," explained Hardrick of the excess funds shown. "So please understand that amount of money has already been spent and our actual savings is only around $575,000."
The board also approved a security plan school attorney Brad Beavers finalized it for the district.
"We are working on a security agreement with top security," said Hardrick who said the firm is a local one started by former Forrest City Police Chief Deon Lee. The program would be funded through ESA funding for school security.
Board member Patti Long asked if that money would be returned to the district, possibly through a recent security fund of $50 million passed by the legislature for the state’s districts.
"We are hoping it comes to us at some point," said Hardrick.
Hardrick also presented the board with two options for a new scoreboard for the Dwight Lofton Arena. The board voted not to spend more than $220,000 for a new score board with picture display, pending best purchasing practices from either the savings from the previous year or reworking of the next year's operating budget.
The board also approved $61,000 for textbooks and $2,000 for professional development training for high school math curriculum as well as the approval of ByteSpeed technology purchases, special education materials and supplies, Opportunity Culture for scope of work, and Mid-South Renovations for campus work.
The board also hired Shantoria Carter as a high school aide, Tyland Lee as a high school longterm sub, Melvin Miller as a bus driver, Shonda Moore as an assistant for the senior high girls track team, and Devin Adell for maintenance.
The board also passed a resolution to send to the state to allow the district to hire board member Larry Devasier's daughter for a special education position after receiving no other applications for the position that was posted online.
Hardrick also told the board the state had recommended districts pay their full-time certified staff a one-time incentive of $5,000 and part-time classified staff $2,500 for hardships faced during Covid.
Hardrick said the district had set aside $1.4 million and reminded the board they had already agreed to $1,500 acrossthe-board bonus for staff out of that set-aside funding.
She told the board that they could approach the recommendation in several ways, including accepting the recommendation, revising the recommendation with reason or refusing the recommendation with reason.
She explained that the $1.4 million would not cover the exact recommendation of $5,000 but the district could revise the recommendation to give teachers and staff as much as possible. She reminded the board the funding is for this and next year's Covid issues.
The board voted for Hardrick to move forward with revising the recommendation to determine what amount could be given to staff members.