With abundant claims about breaking meeting laws, school boards in SC need more scrutiny

It’s time we start punishing shameless law breakers. No mercy should be given to criminals who routinely mock South Carolina statutes and avoid any punishment. Justice should be swift and penalties harsh for these villains.

Who are they, you ask? Who is it that needs to be under investigation?

Local school boards.

Mounting claims indicate that some school boards regularly break state law by meeting in secret and keeping the public they serve in the dark about what the board members are discussing.

It shouldn’t be left up to citizens to sue in order for school boards to be punished.

State prosecuting agencies need to start looking into accounts of South Carolina open record laws being ignored and, if substantiated, pursue penalties. It’s an injustice and disservice to the public if prosecutors don’t take such action.

Certain boards also seem to have a problem with members failing to function like decent people. While no law dictates that people can’t be brutish jerks, the public should at least be given a clear view of the character of board members.

The latest evidence of a misbehaving school board centers around allegations by a Richland 1 board member.

As reported by The State’s Bristow Marchant, Richland 1 board member Beatrice King said in a legal filing that she was convinced the board “was breaking the law” when meeting behind closed doors.

“The topics were not privileged in (the Freedom of Information Act),” King said.

This is the law that some boards apparently are breaking with regularity. The state’s Freedom of Information Act, often called FOIA, lays out rules on conducting public meetings and maintaining and distributing public records. Part of the law mandates that boards can only discuss certain topics, such as legal issues, in closed door meetings called executive sessions. Another part of the law require boards to tell the public what the board will be discussing by releasing an agenda at least 24 hours before a meeting.

Maybe these rules seem obtuse but here’s why they aren’t.

Say a board has an agenda for a meeting scheduled for Friday, and the meeting agenda released Tuesday says the board is only going to talk about repaving a school parking lot. Without a law requiring that the public be given at least 24 hours notice of the topics to be considered, the board could change the agenda just before the meeting and then discuss and approve giving raises to all board members. The public would have no chance to know raises were being considered.

The public also would be left in the dark if — as too often happens — the board illegally voted behind closed doors to give themselves raises. Unfortunately, the public rarely finds out if their school board is illegally conducting executive sessions because its members bow to a code of silence.

For Richland District One residents, King has placed the public interest before the code. She recalled at least three times in 2017 and 2021 that she felt the board’s discussion in executive session should have been held in public. King also said she was yelled at, bullied and physically intimidated, including one time in which others had to hold back another board member trying to get at King. The board member in question denied that.

King’s accusations were laid out in a deposition, as reported on by The State’s Bristow Marchant, that is part of lawsuit by a resident who claims Richland 1 was not giving the public legally required notice about executive sessions.

In another example of a school board allegedly breaking state law, a group of Charleston County parents claimed last month that its school board failed to give the legally required notice of what would be discussed at two meetings, the Charleston Post and Courier reported. The accusation prompted Attorney General Alan Wilson to threaten the district with a lawsuit.

“This Office can and will bring suit against public bodies, who flout their duties under FOIA,” Wilson said in a statement. “Moreover, a consistent pattern of FOIA violations can lead to possible criminal prosecutions for misconduct in office, which carry stiff criminal penalties.”

Back in the Midlands, The State has sued Lexington-Richland 5 to challenge the legality of board members approving behind closed doors a resignation settlement with a former superintendent. The settlement included paying the former superintendent $226,368. The vote was required by state law to be taken in a public session, Senior Editor Paul Osmundson, who filed the suit on The State’s behalf, says in legal filings. The LR5 board made a public vote following The State’s suit.

Ed White, then a member of the LR5 board, was so incensed by the initial private vote that he immediately resigned from the board. In an affidavit filed as part of The State Media Co.’s lawsuit, White reported a comment one board member made in executive session to another.

“At that time Catherine Huddle looked at Ken Loveless, as if the rest of us were not in the room, and stated ‘we are going to be criticized when the public finds out about this,’” White said in the affidavit.

That’s exactly the point. The public needs to know what the board is doing so it can criticize decisions. Criticism makes boards better.

White also claimed that board members mistreated the former superintendent, Christina Melton, often acting hostile toward her behind closed doors.

Then there’s the Richland 2 school board. In May, an executive session turned into a verbal slugfest with member Lashonda McFadden telling another board member “I will f--- you up” and “I will catch your m-----f------ ass outside,” a recording and police report indicate.

If school board members want to have a fight club, they can do that on their own time, but state law doesn’t specify that bullying and childishness are okay during closed-door board meetings.

Wilson should be praised for threatening to investigate and sue the Charleston County school board. With Midlands boards seemingly flying off the legal rails, Wilson should take a look into them as well. If Wilson’s office is busy, county solicitors could keep an eye on these boards.

In cases where school boards are caught flouting FOIA law, they should be punished to the full extent of the law; they shouldn’t get away with a slap on the wrist. School boards have lawyers and all the resources they need to understand what the law requires. One thing they don’t have is excuses for breaking those laws.

No matter who the watchful eye belongs to, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that school boards need more scrutiny to ensure they aren’t breaking laws meant to keep the public inform about how those boards are spending money and time.