CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The Bradley County school board on Thursday deleted from its agenda a mother who wanted to advocate a full-time nurse at Charleston Elementary School, where her disabled son is a student.
Sheila McLemore and her board representative, Mark Grissom, said they believe the board violated her free-speech rights.
Board Chairman David Kelley said he was afraid allowing Mrs. McLemore would spark a discussion that might violate federal rules on medical privacy and endanger funding for local families whose children have disabilities.
At the beginning of the meeting, member Troy Weathers called for a separate vote on the agenda, and members agreed to take off Mrs. McLemore’s name.
“I think we are on very shaky ground,” Mr. Weathers said. “We could lose federal funding right now.”
Mr. Grissom said that everybody in the room already knew Mrs. McLemore’s story because it was in the local newspaper. The child has a variety of problems and must be fed through a tube.
“Sheila has a student, a child who is a student at Charleston in my district,” he said. “Sheila is a wonderful lady who cares a whole lot about her kids. She has one child with special needs ...”
Mr. Kelley stopped him by rapping the gavel and said, “You are out of order. You cannot talk about that.”
Mr. Grissom said Mrs. McLemore was there to talk about the need for a full-time nurse and that an attorney had reviewed her statement.
“To the best of my knowledge, Sheila is not coming to the board to speak about her child tonight, in no way,” Mr. Grissom said.
Board members said Mrs. McLemore should speak first to the school system administration.
Mrs. McLemore said she tried to contact Director Johnny McDaniel but was referred to other offices. She said Mr. McDaniel called her once while her son was being fed and that she asked him to call back but didn’t get another call.
“I would be glad to talk to her, and we have tried to do that,” Mr. McDaniel said.
After the vote, Mrs. McLemore went to the lobby where she read a one-page statement asking for a full-time nurse. In the statement, she said teachers should not be called on to make medical decisions and listed medical incidents she said have occurred at the school recently with no nurse on campus.
Separately, school administrators would not discuss Mrs. McLemore’s case but said Bradley County Schools has 11 nurses, where it is required under state rules to have only three.
At the end of the board meeting, Mr. Kelley said the board’s decision was a tough call and may have come across as callous, but he said members acted courageously.
He praised them for keeping in mind the “literally hundreds of families of children, perhaps even a thousand might not be a stretch, who benefit from federal funds, and that is jeopardized so that we might look at a single (case).”
“I tell you what, this board showed courage. They made a very difficult decision,” Mr. Kelley said.
