Agenda survey rankles Abell

Denied information on poll of school board, member invokes law

Friday, March 20, 2009

Abell filed a request Wednesday under the Maryland Public Information Act.

"This is public information and it should have been discussed in public session. Not a poll taken behind closed doors," Abell said.

The poll, according to Abell, was given to board members last week, just one day after the March board meeting. In a memo addressed to members, Charles County Board of Education Chairman Donald M. Wade noted four topics put forth for future agenda items at the meeting. The items, suggested by Abell, were a crawl across the school system's Web site with information on disciplinary actions from each school, a discussion of the student code of conduct for sexual activity, alternative school scheduling and a request that board members receive disciplinary action information from schools.

Abell received a copy of the poll and was allowed to vote.

In the memo Wade wrote, "Before staff is tasked with researching gathering this information, I need to know if a majority of the Board is in favor receiving information about these requests."

Board members were then to check "yes" or "no" beside each of the four items on a sheet of paper and return it to the central office.

Abell requested the results from the poll informally March 16 and then again March 17. She said Wade did not provide her with the information as it was going to be discussed at the Monday work session.

Abell said it is still unclear if each board member's individual poll result would be available.

While the request was addressed to Superintendent James E. Richmond, personnel at the central office deferred questions to Wade.

Wade said the information on the results of the poll would be released to all board members Monday evening. Wade said Abell's request for individual poll information was denied because "I'm not going to release the information haphazardly ... before other board members get the information. "

Wade said while the poll and each item would be discussed Monday there would not be information regarding who was in favor of discussing Abell's topics as he said the tallies came in with no names He said he was looking for four or more "yes" votes per item in order to move forward and was not interested in knowing who voted for which.

"I don't want to start any fights," he said as to why he kept the poll results anonymous.

Wade said the purpose of the poll was to establish the priority in which topics would be presented to the school system.

He said whenever a "laundry list" of items comes from board members he presents them to the superintendent when he knows that a majority of the board is interested in knowing more about the items.

"They [board members] selected me as their chair and I have a process to go through," he said.

Wade said if the concern is a high-priority item such as safety, he does not need a majority; in those cases, he brings that item straight to the superintendent. He agreed with the example of a school safety concern brought up by member Pamela A. Pedersen on March 11 as a topic that didn't need a majority of the board concurring to be discussed.

Pedersen suggested one of Abell's listed items, sexual offenses, be lumped into the safety discussion.

Abell has kept the public informed of this situation through her blog, Ready, Willing and Abell at http://abell4edu.blogspot.com/, where she posts personal notes from board meetings, educational articles and other educational topics. Members of the public are welcome to comment on these postings, and Wade said he has taken a lot of criticism in comments on the blog.

One anonymous poster wrote "[Wade] is a flaming chauvinist and it becomes more obvious every single board meeting," in regard to why he wouldn't address sexual offenses, one of Abell's listed items.

Wade said he is following a process and being a leader for the board.

"We are a board, we need to be professional," he said.

Wade said he would satisfy Abell's request on the results of the poll Monday, but would not be satisfying her request for individual results as he does not have them.

According to the Maryland Public Information Act, Wade has 30 days to comply with or deny the request. Wade might be protected by an exception to the act which allows "advice or recommendations" to remain off the public record.

The board of education's staff attorney Eric Schwartz was not able to be reached for comment on this matter.

Monday's meeting will be held at the Jessie L. Starkey Administration Building at 6 p.m.

gphillips@somdnews.com