A potentially awkward moment for Springdale School officials passed without much notice recently, but we feel compelled to mention it here as a cautionary tale.
Springdale public schools recently hosted John B. King Jr., the U.S. secretary of education. He and members of his staff toured schools for 90 minutes with Springdale officials, local dignitaries and a handful of school board members. As required by Arkansas law, the gathering of more than two school board members meant that the public and media should have had access to the proceedings. And they did -- up to a point.
What’s the point?
A federal dignitary’s visit to Springdale schools was a moment of pride and honor for local school officials; if only he and his staff had demonstrated respect for Arkansas open government law.
Now, this was a big deal. Springdale patrons, staff and faculty were rightfully proud of the honor of such a visit and put on quite a show for the secretary and his entourage. It was a terrific opportunity for an Arkansas school district to strut its stuff for an influential visitor. Secretary King seemed appropriately impressed with the good work going on at Springdale schools. He was an attentive and gracious guest.
It all went very well, but it got off to what could have been a rocky start. School board members, some Springdale administrators, various invited guests and the secretary filed into a room as things got started. A reporter from our newspaper was there, knowing that according to Arkansas law, school board members can't gather on school business in private.
Unbeknownst to the Springdale officials, the secretary's staff insisted that our reporter leave the room. When she protested, saying that she should be allowed to stay, she was told that the secretary likes to "meet privately" with local school board members and officials to thank them for their service. It didn't seem to matter to the visitors from Washington that the "private meeting" wasn't permitted by Arkansas law.
After registering her complaint with the secretary's staff, the reporter left the room. The private meeting lasted all of about three minutes, just long enough for the secretary to offer his thanks. But it wasn't very private: In addition to the school personnel and the elected board members, a handful of other people were allowed to stay. Just the reporter was excluded which, of course, means that you, too, dear reader, got left out.
When our reporter mentioned the incident later to Springdale Superintendent Jim Rollins and some board members, they were genuinely surprised and expressed regret over what had happened. Rollins indicated -- and we believe him -- that had he known, he'd have intervened.
We'll also concede it's unlikely that secretary's staff knew the details of Arkansas' rather strong open meetings law and wouldn't have known it was problem -- that is, until our reporter told them it was.
King's staff just didn't seem to care. The secretary of education is an important federal official, after all. What's a flyover state's sunshine law when a big-time, important Washington bureaucrat wants to say a semi-private "thank you" to some of the little people?
We've got no complaint with the Springdale School Board or the administration. We also don't think anything happened in those private moments that would require public input. It was a minor, harmless bobble on an otherwise great day for Springdale schools. It wasn't, as the kids say these days, "a thing."
Or was it? We'll really never know for sure, will we? If all he was doing was saying "thanks," why did that need to be private? Was he (gasp!) teaching the school board the secret Obama/Common Core/liberal conspiracy handshake and shoring up the indoctrination of school children into the "progressive" way of thinking?
Too much? Yeah, but see how stuff like this can get out of hand pretty quickly? And that's the point. Open meeting laws are in place for good reasons, including building trust between government and the people who pay for it. They shouldn't be dismissed so easily, even by an important group of federal government muckety-mucks who just want to let the common folk bask in their self-important glow.
Commentary on 04/26/2016