New School Board Provision Limits Members Ability to Communicate
Did you catch this? Style Weekly is reporting that the RPS School Board passed a new provision that says “board members must sign an agreement to ‘uphold and support the decisions of the majority of the board once a decision is made’ and to ‘maintain fidelity’ to the School Board in contact with the media.” Is this type of censorship even legal?
Second District School Board member Kim Gray says she voted for the measure for procedural purposes. To formally challenge a School Board decision at a later date, a member must vote for it initially. But she thinks the effort’s out of whack with basic democratic principles — if not the law.
… fundamentally, it hamstrings the board, Gray says: “If new facts come forward later, we can’t even challenge our own consensus. It’s as if we voted that the world were flat and we could never come back and say it was round.”
That basic point is shared by Kirk T. Schroder, a former president of the State Board of Education.
“I’m totally against any muzzling of any school board member,” Schroder says. “I think there’s one thing to have a consensus-building exercise as opposed to anything that suggests the minority giving up their legal rights.”
It appears to be a measure to prevent some of the back-stabbing that went on amongst previous board members in the press and online [ H&H faithful, remember THIS string of comments, while at times vitriolic, the exchange amongst board members on this site was very educational– do we want this stymied?]. But it seems like it might prevent representatives from communicating with their constituents about a measure they and we may have opposed. Will it make board members uncomfortable enough about breaking the protocol as to stifle communication in general?
The courts have repeatedly brushed back attempts by one political group to silence another. For a longer discussion of the question, check this out.
http://saveourschools-getrealrichmond.blogspot.com/
I have some experience with the workings of bureaucrats in provincial Russia, where they’re still shaking off the rust of decades of Soviet malaise, mistrust, and malingering. The more I see from RPS, the more it reminds me of Russia.
This is disappointing, but not surprising, coming as it is from the Richmond School Board.
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