Excuse me. I mean really, excuuussee, me––Board of Education, you and me, in the parking lot, if you know what I mean.
Just who in the blue blazes do you think you are? You have been told before, you are not above the law of the land. You will always conduct the affairs of this community in accordance with the oath you took, not just how you darn well please.
Not only did you flagrantly violate the Tennessee Open Meeting Act, the law of the land known as the Sunshine Law, after you publicly promised not to, just six short months ago, but you held your "special" meeting, with no public notice, on a day that no one would have suspected. A federal, state and local holiday, when even the County Commission didn’t do their business because of the holiday.
Further, state law requires that school boards adopt written policies concerning the method of accepting and reviewing applications and interviewing candidates for the superintendent’s position.
This is to ensure that the recruitment process, among other things, remains consistent and is not changed to suit particular applicants. A brief review of the policies reveals that this is not the only area the board chose to ignore.
You know, as my high school basketball coach, Willie Hudson, Perry County, explained to the team, there is just right and there is just wrong and you need to know the difference.
If this selection process is an example of these elected officials best efforts, they are not only Pitiful, with a capital "P," they cross the line into breaking the law of the land. It may very well be one of those wrongs without a remedy, but it is still wrong. Just plain wrong.
By the reports in The Courier, the board members obvious lack of due diligence, hence their lack of knowledge of their own policy or procedures, after years of so called service, along with their feeble attempt at setting aside or bypassing the law of the land coupled generally with exposing the negative politics influence on their decision making processes, are all clear examples of why we not only must chance the faces and attitudes of our County Commissioners but the faces and attitudes of our Board of Education, too. I’m sure we can do better.
The future direction of the public school system in Hardin County is at play.
The rare opportunity for the school board members to make an impact by selecting the director of our present and future public school system exposes the folks who seem to have more control over the impact of the decision making process than those we elected to make the decisions. That’s just wrong, but that’s politics.
Attempting to change the state-recommended policy or procedures that were put in place to prevent the very thing they were trying to do is about as straight forward breach of fiduciary responsibility as you can get. They tried to make the recruitment process inconsistent and change it to suit a particular applicant. Double Duh! That was just wrong!
The way the school board has handled this business is not only just wrong, it is shameful. I feel the voters of the districts electing new school board members will deal with those that they can. In the meantime, those that are not standing for reelection in August, should seriously consider submitting their resignations to the people and stand for reelection in August, anyway. I think we could make that work. What say you?
Do we really want to do it the same way we have always done it, because if we do, you can take it to the bank that we are going to get what we have always gotten. It’s going to take new faces with new attitudes and not a lot of political baggage.
I should think that at least one of the nonresident superintendent candidates would have made it to the finals. But of course, if the decision had already been made and the recruiting process was just for show, that would be the way it would work.
Respectfully submitted for your consideration.
Ted
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