On Monday, at a special meeting, the New Hanover County Board of Education voted 5-2 to remove Republican board member David Perry from the policy committee, his only assignment, for four months. Perry and Democratic board member Tim Merrick dissented.
The vote was based on allegations that Perry had violated ethics policies and breached the confidentiality of a closed session meeting. Perry said this attempt to censure him and then remove him from the policy committee was an effort to “muzzle” him, adding he wouldn’t stand for it. While Perry acknowledged he didn't follow the chain of command, he claims he didn’t break any state laws concerning closed session.
Related: Set to be reprimanded, Perry claims NHC school board’s been violating policy, open meetings law
The board stopped short of an official censure, which Republican Board Chair Melissa Mason said would be “a bit much.” Notably, four months ago the board censured Merrick for not following proper protocols in his conversations with an educator and allegedly failing to follow directives from Mason.
Republican board member Pat Bradford pointed out this discrepancy, saying she couldn't "be a part of a double standard."
Bradford’s Republican colleagues didn’t agree with her on the need for a more serious punishement, with vice-chair Josie Barnhart arguing that because Merrick was first stripped of committee assignments and then censured as an additional punishment later, that removing Perry from the policy committee was the appropriate step at this time.
Democratic board members Merrick and Judy Justice voted along with Bradford, agreeing that Perry needed a more serious disciplinary measure. Justice argued that, given Perry’s repeated incidents of bad behavior — including apparently calling her and other board members “jackasses” at a recent meeting — he had not sufficiently ‘changed his behavior.’
What’s actually confidential about closed session meetings?
Notably, on the topic of breaching confidentiality, neither Mason nor the board’s attorneys cited a specific state statute to support their allegations that Perry had violated the closed session law. The law does spell out how the public’s access to closed-session discussions is limited — but it doesn’t necessarily restrict what Perry can say about it.
WHQR reached out to board attorney Brian Kromke to ask him what part of the open meetings law Perry broke when he gave a general accounting of the votes in a student assignment appeal hearing. (The hearing was overseen by four members; Perry said he was the only board member to vote in favor of moving the student to another school, but didn’t name any other board members.) Kromke has yet to respond.
A former public records and open meetings law expert Frieda Bluestein with the UNC School of Government wrote that public boards have to create minutes and a general accounting of a closed session, which then can be released to the public without redactions where necessary to avoid breaching confidentiality. Identifying the party that the confidentiality protects is also important — which was not done in Perry’s hearing.
Bluestein wrote that there is no statutory prohibition on disclosing information, but some of other information is confidential under other laws — like FERPA, for example. Perry did not name the student or the family when he revealed the general vote (though the parent did waive his FERPA rights to allow Perry to talk about his school assignment case).
Bluestein writes further that some types of votes and final actions are allowed in closed session but that depends on the purpose of it. The district might have a case, but it’s not clear if they do because the public does not know what statute or policy subset they’re citing.
Bradford told WHQR that she sees this student appeal vote as a violation of closed session, because the public now knows who was in that room. Bradford maintains that it could comprise the validity of this hearing — and future ones if the public knows how certain board members voted.
She also shared concerns about attorney-client privilege in closed session – and what’s typically shared in both NHCS employee and student hearings would be protected information. This privilege is reserved for specific reasons; it's not intended as a general shield to maintain everything discussed in closed session as private.
Bradford wrote, “The big issue going forward is how are the Assistant Superintendent of Student Services, staff and our attorneys supposed to conduct these appeal hearings, not knowing if a board member is going to leak to the parent what is said in the run up to, or during the hearing and/or how the vote broke down by the individual board members?” She added, “Take a minute and grasp the VERY negative implications of that. Board members freely give of their time to hear these appeals, but my question is what happens if it isn’t kept confidential? Parents can now also be told which board member voted yes and which no to uphold the decision of the district? In today’s climate, board members could then be exposed to retaliation from an unhappy parent.”
Bradford told WHQR that she intends to bring a motion to amend Tuesday’s meeting to continue the discussion of board ethics and professional standards.
Concerns about confidentiality
During the hearing, Barnhart said the board could be sued if they breached confidentiality — but again the board has failed to state which statute they ran afoul of. Nonetheless, she said there is “agreeance and understandance that whatever is said in [closed session] does not get repeated because many times, and this doesn't come to the public sector, we hear a lot of appeals, some we confirm, some we deny, and it never becomes in the media, because it's not the purpose.”
She added that “sometimes people get angry, [but] you have to trust accountability is happening. I can't share with you. I can't talk about the issues at hand, but it gets brought up in closed session. We have a lot of honest conversations about concerns that we have in this district and things that we want to make sure is happening.”
There was another alleged closed session violation preceding the one about the outcome of the vote, according to board attorneys Kromke and Norwood Blanchard, along with the board and superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes. Allegedly, Perry breached the confidentiality of closed session by telling a parent the date and time of his hearing before the superintendent did.
While Perry admits he should have followed the chain of command, he said he didn’t break any closed session statutes; the board and their attorneys disagree.
During the special meeting, there was confusion about who was in charge of giving a consequence, in this case, removing Perry from his committee assignment. Traditionally, that’s the prerogative of the board chair — but Bradford had made the initial motion to hold the special meeting, and Barnhart brought the motion during that meeting to remove Perry from his committee seat. When asked for clarification by Perry, Blanchard said he was caught off guard by this question. Eventually, they decided on bringing that motion forward with the chair agreeing with the punishment.
What the board members likely have on their side is that he possibly broke their board ethics policy, which outlines their professional conduct. The motion didn’t include specific violations. Bradford did list off over a dozen subsections that he allegedly violated within the ethics policy 2120, although without tying specific evidence to a particular subset. (*Note, you can view the list that Bradford sent to media outlets.)
Perry objected to the litany, saying, “this is not a fishing expedition, it is not on the agenda, as let's pick a zillion different things and throw the kitchen sink at David Perry, that's not on the agenda. If you'd like to do that, then perhaps schedule another meeting.”
[Note: During the special meeting, Bradford also said that WHQR had the wrong policy link, but we linked this directly to the district's policy manual online. We are not responsible for updating the NHCS website.]
Bradford also claimed that she hadn’t seen evidence of the text message Perry sent to the board that he was responsible for sending the date and time of the student assignment hearing to the parent. But records indicate that, on July 2, she received it.
Perry again admitted that he made a mistake in not following advised communication protocols but wanted to illustrate that the board can stray into discussing material that’s not protected — and thus inappropriate — when they are in closed session. He further claimed the board prefers, in general, not to have public discussions.
Barnhart jumped in to say that they do not “try to get around stuff” and wanted to direct the conversation back on Perry’s behavior. Mason agreed.
Response to private text chain, quorum issues
The board has a history of not necessarily following open meetings laws.
At a prior meeting, Blanchard has reminded the board that the four of them make a quorum, which includes text messages. The board had a quorum at the New Hanover NAACP Mary Washington Howe preschool community meeting, although they refute that it constitutes a public meeting, and there was another four-member text chain, which included Perry, about a parent-student appeal hearing scheduled for July 11.
Bradford wrote to WHQR about this text message with herself, Perry, Justice, and Mason, saying “no” she didn’t violate open meetings law nor discuss that she should have been recused from the parent’s student assignment hearing; however, within the same written response said she didn’t know how many people were on that thread and that she had a “duty to inform the chair that parent expressed to the superintendent that he didn’t want her to hear the appeal. It was a germane fact, not a discussion. I was transparent in sharing it.”
Bradford added, “There is a great deal of false accusing over open meetings law violations. In my decades long career as a journalist; I monitored open meeting law in the county. As long as the board is not conducting the business making portion of the board; deliberating and making policy, a quorum of board members can actually talk with each other, text each other and be in the same room, and learn together. A majority just can’t deliberate and decide board policy outside of a public meeting. You might want to ask Mr. Perry to share his text comment after this, because his remarks could rise to a possible infraction. His remark was close enough to an open meeting concern the chair stepped in to warn to end it.”
WHQR previously published Mason’s response about discontinuing the four-member text chain as it ran afoul of open meeting law.
In the text chain, Bradford had noted that Chris Sutton, the parent of appeal, had asked for her to be removed from a pending hearing. Perry responded to Bradford's text, writing, "I don't know what Sutton's basis is for that, but unless it's pretty bloody damning then I am going to take your word that you can be impartial."
Failed motions: Wildeboer’s behavior contract, Merrick’s motion to address all board members
The meeting began with Republican Pete Wildeboer introducing a motion, which his colleagues described as “sudden” or a "surprise," to put Perry on a contract. Wildeboer did acknowledge that he hadn’t shared it yet with his colleagues and that he understood if they couldn’t follow through with his idea. Wildeboer stated he wanted the board to focus on things like procuring a school bond to finance the updating of the district’s aging infrastructure.
His proposed contract would have stipulated that Perry stop using profanity and tobacco products while on school grounds, and that he would discuss his online comments with the chair before posting them.
Several of the board members did like the idea of the contract but they had come prepared to discuss Perry’s alleged breach of confidentiality and board ethics policy violations.
Merrick also tried to add an item to the agenda that since they would be discussing Perry’s interactions with some of the district’s parents, could they address all board members' interactions with parents. That failed with only Merrick, Bradford, and Justice voting in favor.
Notably, Justice and Merrick have in the past pushed for a censure of Barnhart based on her interaction with a parent five months ago. This parent sent an email to the board with concerns about changes to the middle school sex education policy. Barnhart’s response included, “You are welcome to encourage your child to have sexual activity [,] as a school we will not be doing that.”
Strained relationships and uncertain next steps
As a Republican-controlled board taking disciplinary action against one of their own, some existing relationships were visibly strained.
Mason did acknowledge that Perry was a big supporter of hers on the campaign trail and that she had a positive relationship with him. She maintained she has displayed professionalism but Perry has not. Perhaps notably, while Mason has toned down her rhetoric in office, on the campaign trail she repeatedly accused district employees — including the former superintendent, librarians, and teachers — of giving pornography to students and indoctrinating them with liberal ideologies.
She said that since Perry was an ally and friend — she didn’t want to make a spectacle of him, that she wanted to dress him down in private, but that she could no longer do that and brought it to the board’s attention.
“There comes a point where grace becomes enabling,” Mason said.
Perry also detailed his history with Bradford, suggesting that she held a grudge against him. Bradford refuted that in an email to WHQR, writing that she had shown him “kindness and support for many years.”
She talked about being on his side in 2021 when they both got escorted out for not wearing a mask at a board meeting — and that she supported him when he sued the district for keeping him out of that meeting (a superior court judge ruled against him and in favor of the district).
Bradford added that Perry is “an avowed Libertarian and not a Republican,” but she still supported him.
Another bone of contention was Perry's claim that Bradford was unhappy that the local Republican Liberty Caucus, which Perry was running during her 2022 campaign, did not endorse her. While Bradford and Perry offered different perspectives, it does appear a communication mishap by Perry caused Bradford to miss an opportunity to Zoom into a meeting — leading to the caucus not endorsing her. Bradford said Perry later offered to try to rectify the situation, but she declined. Bradford maintained she was not holding a grudge over the issue.
The conclusion of the meeting, with Perry stripped of his committee assignment but not censured, appears to leave some of these tensions unresolved — at least for Perry, who called it a “Kangaroo court.”
"The rationale behind yesterday's thing was a lynch mob trying to get me because they're mad at what I say. What I've said in the media or said at the policy committee about "sucking off welfare" and had I said it over again, I probably would have said differently, but that's still not the point. They wanted to get their pound of flesh against me, and that was a real reason."
Perry said he told the district’s lawyers that he was considering his options for legal recourse, specifically with respect to his First Amendment rights. According to Perry, they advised him against that. Perry said he’s still deliberating his next move.
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Below, email from board member Pat Bradford listing what she considered as ethics violations committed by board member David Perry (bold in the original):
I would put to you that Mr. Perry has violated closed session confidentiality, violated his fiduciary relationship to the board, as well as violated one or more school board policies, but specifically Policy 2120 Board Member Code of Ethics
Section A. Board Member Ethical Requirements The following standards will guide each board member in the performance of his or her official duties:
Mr. Perry has violated A2. the need to uphold the integrity and independence of the board member’s office;
Mr. Perry has violated A3. the need to avoid impropriety in the exercise of the board’s and board member’s official duties;
Mr. Perry has violated A4. the need to perform faithfully the duties of the office; and
Section B. Specific Board Member Commitments In order to implement the above standards, each member of the board commits to do the following:
Mr. Perry has violated Section B5. model civility and integrity to students, parents, employees, vendors, and all elements of the community by encouraging the free expression of opinion by all board members; and engaging in respectful dialogue with fellow board members, students, parents, employees, and vendors on matters being considered by the board; and complying with all board policies that set expectations for conduct, regardless of whether the policies expressly require compliance by board members;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B6. respect the confidentiality of information that is privileged under applicable law and refrain from unauthorized disclosure of matters discussed in closed session;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B7b. work with other board members to establish effective board policies and to delegate authority for the administration of the schools to the superintendent;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B 14c. refrain from investigating or attempting to resolve complaints received personally, but instead direct the complainant to follow the board’s complaint or grievance process to resolve concerns;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B16. avoid being placed in a position of conflict of interest and refrain from using the board member’s position on the board for personal or partisan gain;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B18. take no private action that will compromise the board or administration;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B19. remember that a board member is a part of a governance team;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B20. recognize that the strength of a school board is as a board, not as individuals;
Mr. Perry has violated Section B 21. demonstrate respect toward our country and all persons; and
Mr. Perry has violated Section B 24. to understand our role and not overstep as a board member, a chairperson liaison, or an appointee to subcommittees. (This is from NHCS web site)
