The Greenville County School Board is the longest running comedy act in town. They spent fourteen hours behind closed doors Saturday allegedly trying to choose one of three individuals to serve under them as superintendent of Greenville County Schools. Why should we allow them to have all the fun?
The decision could have been simple until “race baiters” aided by the liberal media discovered and dramatized the fact that one of the candidates had committed an unpardonable sin by having students attend school on the MLK Birthday. That would be a problem, they whined.
An alternative would be an African-American man from Phoenix City, Alabama. A man with a sterling track record. But he is male, and the school board is seventy percent female. Choosing a man, even a black man, would not be fair to women.
The third choice is a Caucasian man of known quality, who has worked directly for the superintendent and the school board for almost a decade with an apparent good record. But that would be too simple and reflect badly on the board that spent thousands of dollars to pay for a national search when they had the best candidate in the nation right under their noses and failed to recognize him.
Choosing sleep over duty, they went home before midnight without making a decision, except deciding to rest until Tuesday before taking up the matter again.
With the fourteen hours of deliberations taking place in secret, the public can only speculate as to what went on behind those closed doors with food catered and breaks to make phone calls.
We won’t speculate as to whom those phone calls were made. That could be a sensitive subject. This we know for certain. There are twelve members of the board. There are three candidates. Seven votes are required to choose a candidate. To be legal, the votes must be made in public. Eventually the public will know how each board member votes.
If no votes have been taken in public, and no votes have been illegally taken in secret, how do we know the board can’t reach a decision? We know that this board routinely discusses issues and makes decisions in secret and votes in public for the record. For example: They will vote to “support the recommendation of the superintendent” without publicly stating what was recommended.
There could have been a six/six tie and no winner. That is not likely because that would mean one candidate got no votes. It is more likely that all three candidates got some votes but no candidate got the required seven votes necessary.
Community pressure would prevent two board members from voting for the woman who allowed school on an MLK Birthday. They would vote for one of the men, most likely the one from outside the district. Four additional votes for the men would deny victory for the female candidate. Let us assume that the three male board members voted for the male candidate already serving in the district. If from one to three women joined them and voted for the local candidate, it would result in a deadlock.
Based on the makeup of the board, we could make a somewhat informed guess that two of the women board members voted for the man from Indiana. Four women voted for the woman candidate, leaving three men and three women voting for the local candidate, giving him six votes, one shy of enough to win.
Under this scenario it would be difficult to persuade anyone to change his or her vote. It would be the same if the count were six for the woman and four for the local man. It is less likely that the count is four for each candidate. If it was, there would be opportunity for vote changes.
Whatever was going on in that room for fourteen hours, we can rest assured that it was not just what would be in the best interest of the children of the district.
The final possibility is that the board majority may have already secretly selected the new superintendent. They may have a couple of holdouts and the majority of the board or Chairman Roger Meek will not allow a public vote because they want to create an allusion that the decision was unanimous and that they are not the longest running comedy act in town.
