School Board candidate forum turns contentious

Davis started, emphasizing his considerable interest in “putting every effort” into the success of Union County Schools, being a graduate himself married to another graduate, with his oldest daughter also being a graduate, plus two other children who are currently enrolled here.

If elected, he said he would work to change the culture of the schools by hiring better teachers and better administrators while promoting transparency with the public, and he would do so from a place of independence, not being part of some “good ole boy system,” despite being local.

Hunter, the multiterm board member running for re-election, said he is seeking another term for the sometimes “thankless job” because he loves the students and wants to continue promoting their wellbeing. He, too, has children in the schools, with grandkids on the way to enrollment.

Noting a particular challenge to literacy being the widespread use of cellphones among the youth, Hunter said the board has started chipping away at that technological hold on students by enacting a local cellphone ban for grades K-12, beyond what the state requires.

He said he understood that many people did not like the property tax situation in Union, though he said the board was being as fiscally responsible as possible given funding challenges like dramatically increased employee health care requirements handed down yearly by the state.

Hunter also plugged the many employability initiatives that have been enacted on his watch, which “gives our kids hands-on experience in framing, wiring, HVAC, plumbing – that way they’re ready to go into the job force as soon as they leave the school.”

Philbeck, who will have five children enrolled here come August, said she has been studying the School System for the last few years, during which time she has learned “alarming” information, including “embarrassing” proficiency rates among students despite spending that ranks alongside “any other Top 10 school district in the state of Georgia.”

She contended that to be a failure of both the School Board and School Administration, adding that, in any other profession, administrative leaders producing the same results would “be fired in a heartbeat” rather than rewarded with high-salary positions.

Philbeck also said she was running for transparency, accountability, to rebuild trust with the community, “to get back to academics” and because she was against “career politicians,” noting that it was time for “the younger generation to come in,” especially someone with such a vested interest in the School System, like herself.

The public Q&A featured questions about everything from student bullying – which all candidates agreed should not be tolerated – to the restrictions on public engagement in School Board meetings that, in attendees’ minds, work to create hostility and silence the community.

Addressing the lack of discussion and increasingly restrictive public speaking rules in official meetings, Hunter said he once advocated for more of an open forum approach that ended up resulting in interruptions and hostility from the public “rather than constructive criticism.”

Making his point for him, a few guests interrupted him and also expressed anger during the forum, prompting GOP Chair Sylvia Munson and others to call for order at various points, though all candidates agreed that board engagement with the community needed to be improved.

A significant portion of the discussion featured criticisms of the current Board of Education for lack of oversight regarding school staff, including teachers and administration, which put Hunter, as a sitting board member, in the hot seat for much of the event.

For perspective, the forum turnout was small and therefore not necessarily reflective of the concerns of the broader community. About two dozen people attended, including GOP leadership, the three candidates, and Philbeck’s five young children.

But the anger and frustration by those who had heard about the forum and were concerned enough to be there was palpable, and a lot of that concern had to do with Superintendent John Hill’s tenure as the top administrator of Union County Schools.

Allegations of wrongdoing were lodged against Hill – who was not there to defend himself – that Hunter seemed unaware of, leading multiple attendees to question the level of communication and oversight present between the Central Office and governing School Board.

Davis said that any allegation should be met with an investigation, which he would seek if elected, “and if it’s proven that something was done wrong,” he would work with the rest of the board to end Hill’s employment.

Philbeck agreed with Davis’ position, saying the appropriate processes should be followed.

Explaining his lack of knowledge about allegations regarding various matters at the schools, Hunter said he did not handle the “day to day” activities on campus but noted that the information he does receive usually comes from Hill.

Hunter said that if any allegation could be proven – that is, if he could be presented with facts and not just accusations and rumors – he would have no problem with trying to convince his fellow board members to replace the superintendent.

At one point, Philbeck addressed Hunter to say she had turned over “proof” last year in support of her accusation that Hill had retaliated against her professionally after she complained about a teacher discriminating against her daughters, and that the board did nothing about it.

When Hunter started to explain how the board had been briefed on her situation, one attendee said that hashing that out was not the reason they were there, and everyone seemed to agree, including Philbeck, who said her personal situation was not the focus of her campaign.

Separately, serious allegations of abuse of power were leveled at a School Resource Officer at Union County High who reportedly went above the heads of superiors at the School System to seek felony criminal charges for several students related to an incident on campus.

Jennifer Sewell, the mother of one of the charged students, attended the forum with her husband Tim to detail the hardship their family was experiencing as a result of the situation. She said they were not even consulted by the school until the charges had already been brought.

Sewell described the alleged crime that netted felony charges against her 15-year-old son, beginning with the fact that the school owns an old junk car for use by the Collision Repair class that students, including her son, had grown accustomed to sitting in after finishing their work.

On March 3, upon finding the vehicle locked, a small group of students pried the door open enough to unlock it so they could sit inside, causing damage to the car, Sewell said.

Upon discovering the damage, a teacher reportedly informed a School Resource Officer, who went directly to the District Attorney’s Office to secure the felony charges, including criminal damage to government property, interference with government property, and possession of tools to commit a crime, according to Sewell.

She said that not only were they, as parents, not consulted beforehand on the charges or an attempt at resolution, but that she was told School Police Chief Scott Deyton, Superintendent Hill and High School Principal Josh Davis had no idea about the issue until charges were filed.

Principal Davis reportedly told her the situation should not have gone as far as it did, and her husband Tim said Chief Deyton, after looking into it, informed them that the charges had been brought as a “scare tactic” for the students.

On top of being a parent in the School System, Sewell is a special education teacher at Cherokee County Schools in North Carolina, which helped her produce behavioral review documentation about her son’s Individualized Education Plan for his clinical diagnosis of ADHD.

Apparently, the documentation, which was meant to explain her son’s lack of impulse control from his disability that led him to play a part in damaging the vehicle, was rejected as a means of dismissing the charges.

Sewell said they have been able to see one of the charges dropped for possession of tools to pry open the door, because the tools belonged to the classroom, but that leaves other felony charges in place.

The Sewells are now pursuing due process but are left to wonder: why were charges filed in the first place, and why was this incident allowed to happen at all during a period of unsupervised class time, which is not supposed to occur with students on Individualized Education Plans?

“We are fighting two fronts: the criminal side and the accountability side,” Sewell said. “Because this isn’t just about one incident; it’s about a system that failed to supervise, failed to follow a legally binding accommodation, and then chose to shift the weight of that failure onto a child.”

Hunter said the forum was the first time he had heard of this, and that he would be bringing it up at the April 23 School Board meeting because, from what he had heard that evening, something seriously wrong had been done to the students. He also spoke with the parents after the forum.

Also reported that evening were allegations of students being bullied on campus – whether by a teacher or student-on-student – that were not being effectively addressed by or communicated to the proper leadership inside the School System, including the Board of Education.

One attendee pointed out the challenges of producing evidence amid allegations of bullying and abuse of power. Such allegations often hang on the testimony of individual children and adults alike, which creates the potential for real concerns to be dismissed if not taken seriously.

In light of this, the attendee said the School Board would do well to heed the old saying, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” because, in the attendee’s opinion, “there’s so much smoke” at Union County Schools.

“I understand the passion,” Hunter said toward the end. “I’m one man, and I’ve got two ears and have been listening. And I appreciate everything that you guys have opened up and let me know, because really, some of the things I had no clue about.”

The Republican Primary Election will take place on Tuesday, May 19, to be preceded by three weeks of early voting set to begin April 27.