Beaufort Co. school board member records secret discussion about Facebook comments
A member of the Beaufort County Board of Education accused the board chairman of violating the South Carolina code of law and misusing executive session in a meeting Tuesday.
The Beaufort County school board met to discuss the contract for a firm that would lead the district’s search for a new superintendent.
Upon entering executive session, board chairman Earl Campbell began discussing a Facebook post in which members of the local education advocacy group Citizens Advocating Responsible Education, also known as CARE, were discussing the firm, the name of which had not yet been made public.
The Facebook post, which was shared Monday, announced that the board was scheduled to meet the following day to approve the contract for Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, also known as HYA.
When Campbell began to reprimand board members for leaking the information prematurely, board member Joseph Dunkle challenged Campbell for misusing executive session and began to record the conversation.
In the recording that Dunkle captured and sent to the media, he says to Campbell, “This is not the reason or intent that we went into executive session.”
“We went in here to discuss a superintendent contractual matter not a Facebook comment,” he continued.
Dunkle saw this discussion as violating the S.C. Freedom of Information Act, which limits the board to use executive session only in discussions that involve the compensation or demotion of an employee, the discipline of a student or contractual arrangements and matters covered by the attorney-client privilege.
“It’s just a continuation of the disregard not only by board members, but the longest-serving board member and the chair of the board who doesn’t appear to care about the rule of law,” Dunkle said following Tuesday’s meeting.
Campbell said the fact that Dunkle recorded him and accused him of violating the law “doesn’t bother” him.
Instead, Campbell said he was concerned that a board member was disclosing confidential information to members of the public.
“I don’t know who did it, but I just wanted to let the board members know that that was not OK,” Campbell said after the meeting.
Rich Bisi, the founder for CARE, said Tuesday that the firm’s name was initially included in a post on the group’s Facebook page Monday but it was later removed from the post.
Bisi declined to say how he knew the name of the firm that was chosen before the announcement became public information.
On Tuesday night, the school board did unanimously vote to hire HYA to choose candidates for superintendent.
The school board’s goal is to announce its selection for superintendent in April 2019 so that the new superintendent would begin working on July 1.
This story was originally published October 23, 2018 at 7:41 PM.