by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Spotsylvania School Board member Lisa Phelps will receive a written letter of reprimand from the Board for violating the governing body’s Code of Ethics.
The Board approved sending the letter by a vote of 5-to-0 at Monday evening’s regular meeting. Phelps had been participating in the meeting via phone but had left by the time the vote was taken, and Berkeley representative April Gillespie was absent.
Vice Chair and Battlefield representative Nicole Cole made the motion to take action against Phelps “in the spirit of policing ourselves as a board and to attempt to address where trust has been compromised by a member of this board on multiple occasions,” she explained.
She said Phelps has violated the following statements found in the Code of Ethics, which the Board unanimously approved in January:
- I will have integrity in all matters and support the full development of all children and the welfare of the community, Commonwealth, and nation.
- I will communicate, in accordance with board policies, public reaction, and opinion regarding board policies and school programs to the full board and superintendent.
- I will refrain from using the board position for personal or partisan gain and avoid any conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety.
- I will respect the confidentiality of privileged information and make no individual decisions or commitments that might compromise the board or administration.
- I will always abstain from physical, sexual, and verbal harassment of school employees, agents, volunteers, contractors, or other persons subject to the supervision and control of the school division.
Cole said the violations occurred “in different ways” over the last year, but “particularly in December and again in January of this year.”
In an interview with the Advance on Tuesday, Cole cited the specific violations that led to the reprimand.
In the weeks leading up to the November 7 general election, she said, Phelps wore clothing with the school division’s logo while campaigning for certain candidates at the early voting location, thereby violating the pledge to avoid “any conflict of interest.”
In December, Cole said, Phelps shared “specific conversations that [occurred] in closed session with Spotsylvania County employees who were not part of closed session,” violating pledges related to confidentiality and proper communication.
“I think both times, it was specific to something that I had said,” Cole said. “I received messages from the employee because of [what Phelps told them]. [That’s how] I knew the conversations were shared.”
Cole said that Phelps also shared emails that were sent to her or to former superintendent Mark Taylor with members of the public and to social media pages, “and while these are things that could have been [requested under the Freedom of Information Act], they weren’t.”
Finally, Cole said on Tuesday, Phelps was involved in verbal harassment of former Board member Dawn Shelley on several occasions.
Cole said the reprimand is “something we wanted to do back in January,” but that the policy laying out the process for addressing violations of the Code of Ethics had to first be approved.
“In some senses, when you do it out of timing, it may seem petty,” she said.
At Monday’s meeting, Cole initially asked for both a written public reprimand and that Phelps’s comments be limited to two minutes at the next regular meeting, but Chancellor representative Belen Rodas made a substitute motion removing the limitation of comments as one of the sanctions.
“I didn’t like the part about limiting comments when we voted on [the process for addressing violations of the Code of Ethics],” Rodas said. “I don’t think that’s appropriate. I think it punishes the voters.”
The Board approved Rodas’s substitute motion by unanimous vote, though Cole said she believes that limiting Phelps’s comments is warranted “for the number of violations and … the way the board member has been representing her district with behaviors and comments unbecoming of a board member.”
Livingston representative Megan Jackson said reprimanding Phelps is “unfortunate” but that “I do think we need to hold ourselves accountable.”
“This could be any one of us up here,” she said. “I also don’t want this to be seen as a way to continue to punish somebody. We should still be able to move forward. I don’t want this to be taken personally by Mrs. Phelps, and by all means, if I do the same things, I should be in the same position.”
Courtland representative Carol Medawar said Board members approved a policy for policing themselves and should put it to use.
“It doesn’t do us any good if we don’t follow through when there are things like this that come up,” she said. “While it’s unfortunate, I think it’s necessary. That’s all I’ll say.”
