BENTONVILLE — Any criticism of the School Board regarding its recent use of executive sessions is “off base,” the board’s attorney said this week in response to concerns expressed by a former board member.

Rudy Upshaw, who served on the board from May 2012 to September, sent a letter Monday to Wendi Cheatham, board president, requesting responses to several questions.

One of Upshaw’s concerns focused on executive sessions the board entered into at its meetings Nov. 5 and Nov. 14. His letter asks Cheatham to clarify the specific purpose and need for those sessions, which are held in private. He also wants to know what action was taken as a result of those sessions.

Arkansas law permits executive sessions for the purposes of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation of any public officer or employee.

Upshaw said when Cheatham announced the board would be going into executive session at the Nov. 14 meeting, he asked her to give a reason. She said the need was to discuss the evaluation of Superintendent Michael Poore.

The superintendent’s evaluation typically isn't considered until the spring, Upshaw said.

Cheatham told NWA Media this week she wanted fellow board members to be aware the evaluation process is coming up. She said last year, her first year on the board, board members had very little time to prepare for the process.

“I just want a lot more thought and time, and a lot more diligence and effort to go into it,” Cheatham said. “I take it very seriously. It deserves a lot of consideration.”

The evaluation process should start in January, Cheatham said.

Upshaw said he would object if the only purpose was to discuss the structure of the evaluation.

“It sounds like those are things that should be held in open session,” Upshaw said. “The (Arkansas Freedom of Information Act) is pretty specific about the things that are discussed in executive session.”

But Marshall Ney, the board’s attorney and a former School Board member, said the board is doing nothing wrong by holding an executive session to talk about preparing for an evaluation.

He cited the case of Commercial Printing Co. vs. Rush, in which the state Supreme Court determined purposes for executive session included “possible” employment action to be taken, he said.

“Under my interpretation of the law, the Bentonville School Board properly has called and held executive sessions during its meetings,” Ney wrote in an email. “I believe that any criticism of the School Board regarding its use of executive sessions simply is off base.”

John Tull, a Little Rock attorney who specializes in Freedom of Information cases, said the matter sounds like it falls in a “gray area.”

“If all (the board president) is doing is going in and saying, ‘You need to start thinking about this,’ arguably that’s something that could have been done in open session,” Tull said. “I don’t think just telling people an evaluation period is coming up is really what is intended for the executive session. But that’s a pretty gray area, and I don’t view that as an egregious abuse of the executive session.”

Upshaw’s letter to Cheatham also requests her to explain other actions the board has taken recently, including eliminating the practice of having other groups conduct the Pledge of Allegiance at board meetings, eliminating items from board meetings that recognize the achievements of district staff and students and moving forward with establishing attendance boundaries for the second high school.

Upshaw originally raised his concerns during time allotted for public comment at the board’s Nov. 21 meeting. He said this week no one from the board responded to him.