In what is normally a cut-and-dried matter, the Williamsburg County School District obtrusively appointed board member Bunny McKenzie to serve as its chairwoman.
The board was slated to hold the election of a chairman, but some trustees, including vice-chairwoman Norma Bartelle, Charles Garner and Norman Gamble, said they thought the election should wait based on the board’s rules and regulations.
The debate began within the first minutes of the meeting as Gamble said he felt the appointment of a chairman was against the board’s policy.
Charles Boykin, the school district’s attorney, affirmed Gamble’s position, but reiterated the board members could suspend their rules and procedures if they so chose.
McKenzie said she felt that with counseling she had received from the S.C. School Boards Association, the board members were well within their rights to elect a new leader.
“I called Dr. Paul (Krohne) from the school board association, and he told me that in the absence of a chair — if they resigned or moved or whatever — that we would elect a new chair,” McKenzie said. “The vice chair has no business except to fill in in the absence of a chair during his term, but that we were right to elect a chairperson.”
Contention rose again when some board members asked to seek legal advice from Ken Childs, the district’s former attorney.
Bartelle, Garner and Gamble said the legal advice from Childs was unnecessary because the district already retained Boykin’s services.
“It’s an insult for the board for this to happen. … It’s an insult to our attorney for this to happen and whoever chose to invite someone else here is very much an insult,” Garner said.
This seemingly innocuous issue of having a second opinion regarding the district’s legal status lingered as some board members lashed out, calling each other “clowns” and referring to the proceedings as a “circus,” until the motion of the election was put to a vote.
The tone of the meeting overshadowed the election of McKenzie to the position she held from 2005 to 2006. But with the rancor of the meeting behind her, McKenzie said she hopes to return the focus of the board to the students of the district. She said she specifically seeks to cut extraneous costs.
“The children should come first and not our personal feelings and not who we want where,” she said. “The main thing is to get the children what they need and an education and that’s my only purpose of being here.”
Although the school district provided a balanced budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year, McKenzie said, that by cutting or merging the two assistant superintendent positions the district has, the district would be able to afford more teachers and in turn, help the students.
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