If there has been any doubt about the depth of the split on the county school board and the effect of the County Commission’s malicious meddling in the elected school board’s business, the matter should be clear by now. The reactionary faction of the County Commission effectively ran off former Superintendent Jesse Register in 2006 by refusing adequate funding until he left. And now its proxies on the county school board – expanded to a presumed 5-4 margin in the last school board elections – appear to have finally run off his successor, Dr. Jim Scales, the merged system’s first black superintendent, with essentially the same fiscal choke-hold, and the use of unofficial back channel negotiations.
Dr. Scales’ announcement Tuesday of his decision to accept a buy-out offer on his contract confirms both the back-stabbing of Scales, and the continuing implicit support of the Fred Skillern-led faction of the County Commission that has long worked in league with its school board counterparts to turn back the clock for county schools to the old two-tiered, city-county division.
No vote to negotiate
Dr. Scales said Wednesday that the negotiations which resulted in the buyout offer – a figure which may reach $260,000, plus pension benefits – were begun in February by the school board’s attorney, Scott Bennett, at the behest of one or more school board members. It is glaringly notable, however, that the school board never officially voted to begin negotiations for a buyout of Scales’ contract.
That raises concern about the authority on which the negotiations were initiated. Normally, the school board has to vote on matters of policy and business matters. School board members also are obligated under the state’s Open Meetings and Records Act, the Sunshine Law, not to confer or deliberate on pending school board decisions or votes except in scheduled open meetings.