HOW WE SEE IT Vagueness Casts Pall On Entire School Board

Something’s amiss on the Bentonville School Board, something so egregious board member Willie Cowgur suggests resignations might be in order.

But don’t ask him for details.

Last week, in the same meeting in which the board rejected Cowgur and voted 4-3 to select Wendi Cheatham as president, Cowgur had something on his mind. He commended the administration for its work citing good academic performance and astrong fi nancial picture for the district.

“That leads me to a concern I have,” he said.

“As I talk to people, I think the morale in this district is not good right now. I really think it’s due to the leadership of the board.”

But wait. That’s notall. Cowgur said those people tell him some board members have hidden agendas.

“We’ve got some great, great people who lead this district and I’m concerned we’re going to lose some people at the end of the year. If you’re not on this board for the right reason, I think you need to resign and let someone else fill the seat.”

Cowgur, during the meeting and after, would not elaborate on who might be departing the district or which fellow board members might be serving for the wrong reason or what the right reason for being on the board needed to be.

Yeah, something’s amiss, all right. It’s rare for one school board member to suggest his other elected colleagues need to resign.

We appreciate Cowgur’s forthright comments, as far as they went. School board members are elected to give clear policy guidance to the hired professional staft and to ensure the community’s concerns about local education are addressed. When a school board member sees something not in keeping with those solemn responsibilities, he owes it to voters, students and other stakeholders to speak out.

So the fact he expressed his frustrations is not a problem, but even after he spoke, only Cowgur can say for sure what the heck he was talking about.

As a result of his vagueness, the public he serves really didn’t get a clue about what might be happening or why it’s so beyond the pale that some school board members should cut their time in off ce short.

He’s right that school board members don’t need to use the offce to pursue individual agendas or to grind any axes. Still, Cowgur no doubt has a clear idea in his head as to who and what he’s talking about. He chose, however, to raise suspicions about every member of the school board. In his mind, he may think he hit the target. From the outside looking in, it was more like carpet bombing.

All of these folks operate from the same authority granted to them by the electors. A call for resignations is a serious move that, based on other members reactions, was quickly dismissed.

If Cowgur has serious concerns about his fellow members, he needs to articulate them so voters can, at least, use that information to decide for themselves whether to continue support for individual members.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 01/25/2014

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