At the reorganization meeting of the Spotsylvania School Board Monday night, the reshaped Board went to work immediately reversing several controversial decisions by the last Board.
by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
At its first meeting on Monday, the new Spotsylvania School Board “unbanned” the 37 books that were removed from school libraries last year by Superintendent Mark Taylor.
The Board, under the leadership of newly elected chair Lorita Daniels and vice chair Nicole Cole, approved a motion by Cole to restore the titles to library shelves—although the current location of the physical copies of the books that were removed last year is unknown.
Board member Megan Jackson, in her comments earlier in the meeting, told Taylor that “we deserve to know what happened to the books.”
“There is a specific process in place that should have taken place but did not,” Jackson said. “As superintendent, you did order the books removed from school libraries and now they are missing.”
Taylor did not mention the books during Monday’s meeting.
In addition to restoring the books, the Board undid several other actions taken by the previous board over the past two years.
The Board rescinded a resolution that gave the chair authority to hire and fire licensed employees and the superintendent authority to hire and fire unlicensed employees without the approval of the full board.
The board also pulled policy IIA—which governs the selection and review of instructional materials—and its accompanying regulations.
This action also freezes the ongoing book challenge process and directs staff to rewrite the policy and regulations with the input of a committee of community members, parents, librarians, division staff and students by the April Board meeting.
“This is so we can have a thoughtful process for reviewing, and coming up with a policy that makes sense for our school division and is in the best interest of students,” said Cole, who made the motion.
The current policy was approved last month and was based on the work of a small committee that met over the summer, with significant edits by outgoing Board member Rabih Abuismail.
Jackson noted that she appreciates the work of the committee and hopes the policy rewrite preserves some of that work.
“I want to put on the record that we can pull some good things from that and work with staff in their expertise to pull some other great things together,” she said.
Cole added that parents who are concerned about their child having access to certain library or instructional material while the review process is frozen always have the option of opting their child out.
“You can always send a request to your student’s school and your student will be restricted from checking those (materials) out,” Cole said. “Parents have the right to dictate what their students have access to.”
The above actions were approved by votes of 5-to-0. Board members Lisa Phelps, the former chair, and April Gillespie were present for the first portion of the meeting but left, without explanation, before the Board took up new business.
The Board also approved a memorandum of understanding with the Sheriff’s Office governing the placement and oversight of school resource officers; amended the instructional calendar for next school year to move Spring Break to March 24-28, in alignment with Stafford County, and make the last two days of school half days; restored the ability of Spotsylvania Education Association members to pay dues through payroll deduction; and agreed to reestablish two readings of new policies and proposed revisions to existing policy before they go into effect.
Before adjourning in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Board approved the hiring of Sands Anderson as School Board attorney and called a special meeting to discuss “personnel matters” for Friday at 4 p.m.
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Gee – I wonder what personnel issues they have to discuss……
Anyway, looks like sanity has returned and they are getting their house in order. Though it looks like some of the old board is deciding to pick up their marbles and go home rather than engage in debates of issues when they cannot control either the debate or outcome.
That’s a shame. Especially for those who voted for them as representatives.
Guess we’ll see how it goes.
I love it! This board is going to take care of business! Pro-public education has gotten the school division back!