Under the proposed policy, for the first infraction, a member would be removed for 90 days, for the second it would be 180 days, and for the third it would be for the remainder of the appointed term.
Board Member Hugh McManus said this proposal was a “Trojan Horse” to keep members from stating their beliefs.
“You can't take away my right to voice my opinion, as long as I don't curse or threaten you. You're gonna silence an elected member? [...] We get to say what we feel. So the audience, are you going to control them? You going to control the newspaper, the TV?” McManus said.
Vice-Chair Pat Bradford disagreed. She said for elected officials serving on a committee is not a right, but a privilege.
“We've tried the sanctioning, or y'all, the old board, tried the sanctioning, it didn't have any effect, took a lot of time; it was sort of an embarrassment. It was out there in the media, it didn't make any difference,” she said.
Bradford may have been referring to the censure of Board Member Stephanie Kraybill by the county GOP last March — or the censure of former board member Judy Justice by the school board in January of 2022. Neither resulted in removal from school board committees. (Bradford did not respond to a request for clarification.)
Board member Stephanie Kraybill claimed the change was directed at her personally for speaking her mind at committee meetings.
Kraybill reminded the members that one of the 24 components in their ethics code is to “avoid being placed in a conflict of interest and refrain from using the board member’s position for personal or partisan gain.”
Member Stephanie Walker thought the proposed policy was “insulting” and established a “punishment system for adults.”
Member Melissa Mason added, “We need to take a slightly different approach, perhaps using a censure as a warning. I think this is a bit drastic.”
Prayer meetings of the recently elected Republican members
McManus noted he felt uncomfortable that the four recently elected Republican members have been meeting privately — without him, Kraybill, and Walker — to pray. Since four members is a quorum, they would be violating open meetings law if they discussed school business.
“It just doesn’t look good, so if we’re going to discuss code of ethics, and that perception of code of ethics, [...] if the four of you are going to do that, then do that somewhere else, not in the room behind closed doors,” McManus said.
Chair Pete Wildeboer said he was “extremely embarrassed” by McManus’s comments — and that his integrity had been attacked.
“To be honest, we pray for each one of you. We pray for a good meeting, and the students of New Hanover County Schools,” Wildeboer said.
Kraybill added that she had witnessed a time when those four members “were not praying, but that is a whole other issue.” She did not elaborate further on that specific event.
Vaccine Policy
Members voted 4-3, with members Walker, Kraybill, and McManus dissenting, to change the policy (4410) surrounding immunization and health requirements for school admission.
Bradford said because of the pandemic that there are segments of the population who don’t want to take any vaccine.
Additionally, Wildeboer asked board attorney Jason Weber if there are exemptions for the list of these vaccines. He replied that yes, within the policy there are links to the exemptions around religious and medical reasons.
Weber said to the members that the school board does not have policymaking authority over the list of the vaccines school children have to take — that statutory authority lies with the state and the state health board.
Ultimately, Bradford, Mason, Wildeboer, and Barnhart stripped the line, “any other vaccine as may be required by law or regulation,” in that if there is a mandated vaccine by the state or federal government, then they would vote to formally adopt the specific vaccine.
“In good conscience, I could not leave that in there,” Bradford said.
While the members did strip the “catch-all” language out, they still would have to comply with any new vaccine mandates passed by these higher-level authorities.
Bradford's "Take back our schools" and public comments
Ahead of the invocation, Bradford moved to add an agenda item to “instruct the superintendent to instruct his principals and vice principals to take back our schools in terms of discipline.” She said that they have to address the guns, drugs, and violence within the district.
The proposed motion was met with uncertainty by the rest of the board, who noted that a much larger discussion around discipline and safety needed to take place rather than simply voting on a directive that night.
Bradford's proposal was rejected 6-1, but previewed themes echoed by the public moments later.
During the ‘Call to the Audience,’ about a third of commenters spoke out about disciplinary and suspension policies in the county, specifically NHCS policy 4351, which does not allow students to have a parent or representative present at short-term-suspension hearings.
Speaker and former board candidate Veronica McLaurin-Brown said, “Our communities need and deserve school policies that support a school climate that heals our community rather than traumatizes it.” She spoke alongside members of the advocacy group “Love our Children,” which she noted had been to the board 27 months in a row asking for change.
Revision of this policy was discussed at a committee meeting on May 16.
Members of the public also expressed concern over safety issues in schools following the discovery of two firearms at Ashley High Schooland multiple lockdowns at New Hanover High School last month. Kaleb Norris, a Navy veteran and substitute teacher, said does not feel safe teaching at New Hanover.
“Even with my background in the military, I did not feel safe in that school,” Norris said.
Other board votes
The board moved to recognize June as Pride Month in a 6-1 vote. Member Josie Barnhart was the sole dissenting vote.
The board also decided to keep with the 6-month probationary contract for its newest law firm.
Mason introduced a motion to extend the contract for the Vogel Law Firm for one year. Members Walker, McManus, and Kraybill said they had agreed on the 6-month contract at the last meeting, asking why would they change this now.
Bradford agreed with Mason that they needed to “empower this new team” and that it was unusual for the district to give less than an annual contract.
However, Wildeboer joined Kraybill, Walker, and McManus to sustain the original board decision.
Board Policy Proposal by Ben Schachtman on Scribd
