School board gives Moss his majority back and causes whiplash in the meantime

The Beaufort County School Board did something Tuesday night that must have come as a true surprise to the superintendent.

It voted against his recommendation.

Four board members who typically align themselves with Dr. Jeff Moss — Earl Campbell, Laura Bush, Geri Kinton and Evva Anderson — instead chose a school makeup-day plan that was not the one Moss or the parents and teachers surveyed by the district favored.

But never fear.

Within 48 hours, he had those board members back in line, and the natural order of The Moss Majority was restored.

By Friday morning, the superintendent’s original plan was intact, the same plan his office mistakenly and momentarily presented to parents and teachers two weeks earlier as the official solution to make up the days lost to Hurricane Matthew and Tropical Storm Hermine.

The district meant to say “pending board approval” in its announcement, and added this a day later.

To sum it up: After a very life-disrupting hurricane and just as the holiday season is starting, Beaufort County parents and teachers have had to revise things like child-care, vacation plans, surgery schedules and work agendas three times.

Why?

Because this is how your school board operates.

This board is sloppy, political, petty and largely unrepentant.

And the members make this point about themselves again and again.

They make this point at the very same time, in fact, that they are asking you to trust them with $217 million to spend on school renovations and expansion.

We are only four days away from the 1 percent sales tax referendum, and that they couldn’t smoothly handle something as basic as voting once on an issue at a time when they need to be putting their best foot forward, does not bode well.

The board had four scheduling options.

It knew Option 4 was the one Moss, parents and teachers wanted (and were, for all intents and purposes, already told was likely).

It knew, I would hope anyway, that it wouldn’t be able to please everyone.

And it knew that Option 3, the one they were voting for, meant that, very nonsensically, students would have a two-and-a-half week gap between the last day of class and finals.

It knew this and voted.

It decided.

So parents and teachers revised their plans again.

Then the board undecided.

On the drive home from Tuesday night’s meeting, Bush said Friday, she thought about it more and regretted her vote.

Two days later, Bush emailed fellow board members and told them she chose Option 3 because she believed families could use the longer holiday time to regroup and recover after the hurricane. Now, though, the idea of interfering with test performance was weighing heavily on her.

She said she did not know what, if anything, could be done about this, but ended the email by saying, “If we are to re visit (sic) this the chair need (sic) to hear from more than me. And we need to move on it right away.” She asked the group how soon it could meet if there was support for this.

Kinton responded to the group a few hours later to say that she, too, regretted her choice and that she would vote for Option 4 if there was a revote.

She said, “I believe I subconsciously voted for option 3 to quiet those who say the ‘majority’ simply do whatever Moss says. While my personal idea of the best option for make-up days is not what Dr. Moss recommended, of the options presented, I believe option 4 is truly best for our students in addition to having favor with all stakeholders.”

Yes, she voted for Option 3 not because she thought it was the best one for students, but because on some level she thought it would look better to not do “whatever Moss says” this time, the time it makes sense to fall in line, the time when emotions are running higher than usual and clarity and leadership are what’s needed most.

This is called “fallout.”

This is what happens when a board does not have the trust of the public and does little to build that trust. It makes messy, hasty decisions based on emotion, perception and presumption rather than fact and thought.

To add insult to injury, instead of taking the opportunity Friday to loudly and clearly apologize for its mishandling of the scheduling issue, the board focused on how the act of the revote itself is not a violation of the law or Robert’s Rules of Order.

Nope. It did nothing wrong in this situation. Nothing at all.

Never mind the confusion.

Never mind the wasted time and clumsiness.

And never mind the whiplash.

This story was originally published November 5, 2016 at 11:19 AM with the headline "School board gives Moss his majority back and causes whiplash in the meantime."