There are many people in Durham these days scratching their heads and wondering just what is going on down at the School Board. This is an improvement, from my point of view, over the previous attitude that ranged from “I wish those black folks would just shut up and sit down” to “Throw the bums out”. The fact that people are actually at the point now where the question is “What exactly is all the fuss about” is a definite step in the right direction. I must admit that when I chose to confront the Durham School Board head-on it was my hope, one of my hopes, that it would spark just this sort of reconsideration on the part of the public about what is happening in Durham Public Schools. To this point it has been very hard to direct any attention to the actual issues rather than the monthly sideshow at the Fuller Building.
Nearly as important as the proper education of our children is our right as citizens to petition our elected representatives for redress of grievances. The Durham School Board, by eliminating Open Public Comment from School Board meetings has used the power we give them to attempt to stifle public criticism of their actions. The claim that citizens can attend the committee meetings that have been set up is a red herring. Sure, we can attend those meetings and talk to our hearts content but in the end it is the equivalent of calling and leaving a voice message. Since none of those meetings requires a quorum (four members of the board) to be there then none of the committee meetings constitutes an official meeting. As such the board members in attendance are under no legal obligation to act on anything that is brought before them. In fact they don’t even seem concerned about getting back to citizens “in five working days” as they like to say since a great many complaints have not been answered even in this limited forum. So, what we have here is a sleight of hand. Our free speech rights are taken away with one hand while a sham substitute is offered with the other. The hope, apparently, is that we will be deceived into offering our complaints in a forum that, since there is no force of law behind it, allows board members to simply ignore allegations they find inconvenient to answer.
This issue is considered so important that Representative Earl Jones from the 60th District (in the Greensboro Area) has succeeded in getting a bill to require Open Public Comment at ALL government meetings (including School Boards) moved out of committee and passed by the NC House. The bill now goes to the NC Senate and its chances of passage there are said to be very good.
All of this doesn’t even begin to address the issues that are at the core of the dispute between the school board and Durham parents. Now that everyone seems to be in the mood for listening and actually trying to solve these problems here they are spelled out in black and white (so to speak): Some of our children are being illegally searched and others are being suspended without due process. Sure, searching a kid might sometimes be the right thing to do. In the case of the son of Mrs. Minnie Brown, however, his parents weren’t called as required by school policy (and state law) and when they found out about it they were told, by Principal Fairley, that she didn’t have to give them a reason for the search. That is a violation of school practice. To this day this accusation has never been refuted. No member of the school board or any employee of DPS has ever proven or even so much as asserted that Principal Fairley did indeed call Jimmy’s parents to be there or that she gave the parents an explanation for the search. All we have heard is broad proclamations of support for Ms. Fairley. Never have the actual allegations been challenged.
I personally and as a member of Concerned Citizens of Durham North Carolina call upon the Durham School Board to look at all the other allegations of abuse at Durham Public Schools. The Durham Human Relations Commission has already offered to help sort out the truth in these cases. The Durham School Board should stop hiding behind the fig leaf of “confidential personnel information”. On the one hand the personnel involved could waive confidentiality and on the other the information could be released only to a special panel such as the Human Relations Commission.
In reality, I doubt very much if the Durham School Board will take the Human Relations Commission up on their offer. In that case we will have to settle these issues in court. One good thing about being arrested for protesting the school board’s unconstitutional gag order is that it gives me a chance to meet one on one with board members as they are deposed and as they are compelled to answer questions about their policies in open court.
