Days of dysfunction

BOE member John Knox raises his hand in a vote on Sept. 26 at a BOE meeting called to discuss the BOE’s role in the complaint filed to the district’s accreditation agency, Cognia, formerly known as AdvancED. Knox was involved in a disagreement with Superintendent Dr. Demond Means in April of 2019. “My primary intent in having the April 9, 2019 meeting with Dr. Means was to help him in his job—not to undermine, not to threaten, and not to intimidate,” Knox wrote in a statement published to the Flagpole. Photo by Luna Reichert

The governing of the Clarke County School District is in question following several conflicts within the CCSD Board of Education.

Clarke County School District Superintendent Dr. Demond Means announced his intent to resign at the Nov. 21 Board of Education meeting. Means has served in the position since May 2017, and his decision to resign comes after months of turmoil within the highest levels of CCSD leadership.

Means’ announcement at the Nov. 21 meeting followed the BOE’s approval of a letter to the state Professional Standards Commission. The letter stated that the BOE would determine an appropriate course of action regarding ethical complaints against Means but would not request official sanctions from the PSC.

“Your vote this evening of the amendment from Dr. Mattox is political in nature, I don’t think it was unbiased. It’s extremely disappointing, and what I will share is (I feel like you all) don’t want me here and that’s fine if that’s what your decision is, and by virtue of the vote that’s what you’ve shared with me. I want the public to know that this is what I would’ve shared in the executive session. This is politically motivated, this vote solidifies the efforts of many to rid me of the district,” Means said at the meeting. “You are successful and whenever we can convene in an executive session to discuss my exit from Clarke County I will embrace it.”

The conflict between the Superintendent and the BOE became heightened after the revealing of an Aug. 9 letter to Superintendent Dr. Demond Means from the state of Georgia’s accreditation agency, AdvancED. The letter informed Means of an official complaint, filed anonymously by community stakeholders, against unnamed members of the BOE.

A shortened version of the AdvancED letter was sent out to CCSD faculty and staff on Aug. 22. The letter states that the conduct of select BOE members are “interfering with the district’s ability to function responsibly and effectively” and “impeding the autonomy of district leadership to meet student achievement goals.” The letter was also posted on the district website the same day at this link, but was later moved.

“The current situation is unsustainable, and the academic program of the school district is at risk if there is no immediate intervention and recalibration of governance roles, responsibilities and relationships from an outside third party,” Means responded to the complaint at a Sept. 12 BOE meeting.

The Aug. 22 letter sent to CCSD staff states the complaint “alleges select (BOE) members lack knowledge of the Board policies and law; exhibit a lack of understanding of their Board roles and responsibilities, undermine the leadership of the district; and micromanage day-to-day operations of the district.”

“I may have used the word low-functioning (to refer to the BOE). I’ve also used the word dysfunctional,” Means said at an Aug. 29 BOE meeting.

AdvancED required a formal response to the Aug. 9 letter from the Superintendent’s office by the 30-day deadline of Sept. 13. Means presented the BOE with a draft of his response letter on Sept. 12, in which he supported the intervention of AdvancED in the situation. Clarke Central High School parent Jennine DeLane also believes intervention by AdvancED is necessary.

“We have a very divided School Board panel, and we have a need for an outside resolution,” DeLane said. “I don’t want our school district and the kids to suffer in the case that our school district becomes discredited because, if it leads that far, that could put graduating seniors in a little bit of jeopardy.”

According to local parent and entertainment lawyer Bertis Downs, the nature of the allegations in the AdvancED complaint are unusual and leave members of the community confused about the status of the CCSD.

“I don’t know anyone who’s actually seen the complaint. And nobody seems to know who filed the complaint. And nobody knows exactly what the charges are, or who’s been charged,” Downs said. “Accreditation is nothing to mess around with. It’s kind of hard to imagine filing an accreditation complaint against the district over, over anything, but certainly over (alleged BOE member misconduct). It seems bizarre. It seems misguided. And I can’t imagine a scenario in which it ‘helps the district’. It’s anxiety producing.”

The AdvancED complaint follows past conflicts between the Superintendent and the BOE. In a July BOE meeting, where members voted on a June 2022 contract extension for Means, only District Eight representative John Knox and District One representative Greg Davis voted for a postponement to December 2018 on the grounds that there was a lack of data during the official Superintendent evaluation process. Domain one of the BOE code of ethics states that BOE members should “not undermine the authority of the local Superintendent.”

“Both Greg and I opposed (Means’ contract extension). We were the only two, and so it is presumably that to not vote on the extension was tantamount to undermining the Superintendent. Publicly, I expressed the reason that I did not vote for the extension was that when we were doing the Superintendent’s evaluation, I was working from the strategic plan (set forth by the district),” Knox said.

Knox believes that overlapping policies in BOE code of ethics cause misunderstandings regarding the role of a BOE member in evaluating the Superintendent.

“The balance of power is really quite interesting because, from the outside, you might think that the Board employs the Superintendent and hires and fires. Well, there’s policy, and then on top of that, local tradition, that says that we hire, but then we don’t talk about the (evaluating) part,” Knox said. “Our job is to hire and support, hire and support, hire and support. And I thought, and I still think it is, within the parameters of a school Board in the state of Georgia to evaluate. And so part of this attack is simply for, in my opinion, doing my job.”

Means and Knox have had conflicts in the past, including a disagreement in April of 2019 regarding Means’ decision to place a district employee on an improvement plan, where guidelines are placed on schools to ensure enrichment of performance. Knox sent Means’ an email titled “Mixed Messages” giving input on his decision. Means emailed AdvancED Regional Director Greg Arnsdorff on April 10 regarding filing an official complaint against Knox for misconduct during an in-person meeting regarding the situation, which, according to the Flagpole, was dropped in June.

Domain one of the BOE code of ethics also states that BOE members should not “intrude into responsibilities that properly belong to the local Superintendent or school administration, including such functions as hiring, transferring or dismissing employees.”

Infographic by Mackenzie Caudill

“I have never been as demeaned and mistreated professionally by a Board member as I was during our meeting. It was a clear example of micromanagement from a Board member,” Means wrote in a letter to Knox following their interaction. “Further, your threat of problems arising for me should a principal leave the district was concerning. In short, your behavior was in violation of Board policy BH, BBD and CF.”

According to Knox, his objective in emailing “Mixed Messages” was to inform, not to micromanage. Domain one of the BOE code of ethics also states BOE members should “use reasonable efforts to keep the local Superintendent informed of concerns or specific recommendations that any member of the Board may bring to the Board.”

“My intent in meeting with Dr. Means on April 9, 2019 was to express praise for recent recommendations, approved by the Board, for principal changes, and also to express concern over the potential negative impacts of a potential additional change in the context of the many principal changes that had already occurred during the 2018–19 school year,” Knox told the Flagpole. ”My primary intent in having the April 9, 2019 meeting with Dr. Means was to help him in his job. Not to undermine, not to threaten and not to intimidate.”

DeLane believes Means’ initiatives have been held back by certain groups in the community. According to DeLane, Means’ plans promote progressive change in CCSD regarding issues such as the achievement gap and is causing unnecessary disruption in the community.

“We have been sliding for years in Clarke County by blaming the poverty (on) home issues when children have been in school for eight hours. It only takes 30 minutes a day if you really want to teach a child how to read,” DeLane said. “So again when (Means) came in on that spirit, that showed up stuff because it meant business was not going to be as usual in Clarke County.”

“We have been sliding for years in Clarke County by blaming the poverty (on) home issues when children have been in school for eight hours. It only takes 30 minutes a day if you really want to teach a child how to read,” DeLane said. “So again when (Means) came in on that spirit, that showed up (conflict) because it meant business was not going to be as usual in Clarke County. And unfortunately, I think everybody’s looking for the best interests (of students), but maybe we’re not.”

According to Fred Smith, long-time community member, CCSD alumnus and former NAACP chair, conflict in the CCSD is nothing new. Smith believes that former CCSD Superintendent Dr. Lucian Harris, the first African American Superintendent of schools in the CCSD, faced the same dissent from within the BOE.

“(Dr. Harris) had, of course he had some ups and downs too, and his removal was kind of controversial. It appeared that five Board members got together one night, without any discussion, without any debate, and they dismissed him. They fired him,” Smith said. “In the end, Dr. Harris was not treated any differently (than Dr. Means) but I think along the way, he wasn’t treated the same way that Dr. Means is being treated at this time. I believe that is because Dr.Harris did not make equity the core of his agenda, and I believe that if he had he would have suffered the same type of lash back that Dr. Means is receiving today.”

An ethics complaint was also filed in April of 2019 against Means through the Georgia Professionals Standard Commission by parents and taxpayers, which was recently dropped by the ethics board. DeLane believes this is representative of the fact that there is a group in Athens who is against Means’ reform efforts.

“(We lack a) sense of cohesion. That leads to further disenfranchisement because when lack of cohesion comes in, then you have those same parties in schools who did not support him in that area, (and) they’re coming back forging the complaint of ethics against him,” DeLane said.

Smith is active in the Facebook group, CCSD Town Hall, where teachers, parents and community members share information surrounding the district. According to Smith, the backlash against Dr. Means in the community is “overboard” and “way out of line.”

“To be honest, I know a lot of people disagree with me. I feel better about the district now than I did three or four years ago. At least now we are talking about and dealing with the critical issue of the day to me, and that is the failure to educate, for the most part, African American students in this community. Of course, not everybody is agreeing, but it’s on the agenda and I feel that the current Superintendent has put forth a plan to improve the schools,” Smith said. “I do think that there is some racial undertones to all of this. All these years when African American students have not done well, people have been quiet and seemingly satisfied and now that measures are being put into place to actually do something about that, there seems to be so much dissatisfaction about almost everything.”

According to Knox, he was inspired to run for the BOE by the controversy surrounding for Superintendent Dr. Philip Lanoue’s leadership in light of the Cedar Shoals High School sexual assault allegations.

“I was elected in the aftermath of the Cedar Shoals incident. The Eastside of Athens was powerfully angry at what happened. There were 200 people in the auditorium at Cedar Shoals with Phil Lanoue on stage, arms folded, responding to students, recent graduates and parents who had serious questions about why things had been kept secret for a month and that was where I declared my candidacy,” Knox said. “I couldn’t take that kind of just haughtiness, and so I ran on a reform platform of asking questions because when I went to Board meetings I didn’t see many questions being asked.”

Smith believes the community showed more respect towards Lanoue during his leadership of the CCSD.

“In my opinion, I think the School Board was much more respectful of Dr. Lanoue than they are of Dr. Means. From my understanding and what I’ve read, I think the whole accreditation issue is geared around that fact that there are lines that School Board members should not cross in the day-to-day operation of schools,” Smith said. “There are questions now about whether certain Board members have crossed that line. I don’t remember that discussion or that being an issue when Dr. Lanoue was here.”

The nature of the AdvancED complaint threatens the accreditation of the CCSD. Another county in Georgia similarly lost their accreditation in 2008 due to misconduct among the BOE. Losing the battle with the agency, Clayton County’s BOE lost four members and suffered other consequences. According to NPR, Clayton County lost their accreditation due to “a dysfunctional school board, ethics complaints and violations of the state’s open meeting law.”

However, the accreditation complaint in CCSD is still early in the process of review. CCHS Associate Principal Dr. Linda Boza believes losing accreditation could cause issues, but is unsure whether the outcome will be drastic.

“I think, from a family perspective, parents are worried that they could be in a school district that loses accreditation, and that’s a scary thing for a family. You know, teachers would then possibly lose jobs if people move, so there’s a snowball effect,” Boza said. “I think it’s too early to tell where that’s going. By nature, I’m not a person who worries. So, until there’s a real need to worry, I don’t.”

Considering the past conflicts in the CCSD, DeLane believes that the AdvancED complaint could have and should have been prevented.

“Those same individuals (who are undermining the Superintendent) should have thought about that in all the subsequent months that led to this problem,” DeLane said. “Now we’re sitting here so disheartened, because it didn’t just happen overnight, this happened with months and months and months of undermining the Superintendent’s leadership, not supporting his initiatives.”

On Aug. 22 the Clarke County School District was informed of a complaint filed to the district’s accreditation agency, Cognia, formerly known as AdvancED. The complaint states that certain school members have been undermining CCSD Superintendent Dr. Demond Means. “The relationship is so divided at this point that I don’t see an opportunity for collaboration,” Means said. Photo by Luna Reichert

On Nov. 15, District Two representative Dr. Frances Berry resigned from her position on the CCSD BOE, according to a CCSD press release from Nov. 17. Berry addressed the reason for her departure in an issued statement.

“I joined the Board hoping I could help make a difference but I learned this year that I am not cut out for the stress of politics,” Berry said. I resigned in order to focus on my health and my family.”

According to CCHS Assistant Principal Summer Smith, the CCSD hasn’t been in such a position since she has worked in the district, and there needs to be some mediation in regards to the CCSD’s reputation.

“I’ve been in this district since 2002 and I don’t like to see that the community is embattled in any way shape or form because I think that takes away from what our jobs are, which is to teach students every day,” Smith said. “I don’t really know the specifics, to be honest with you, because I’m too busy (being) worried about what I do in my job. I just hope that it can all be resolved and that we can continue to make this district as good as I know that it can be and to let everybody else know that we are as good as we are and have a positive light for Clarke County.”

BOE president Lakeisha Gantt believes the dysfunctionality of the BOE is straying the focus away from their goals in governance.

“It’s such a reminder of the fact that there are so many other things that go into education, and sometimes we lose sight of children. And to be quite frank, whether we’re looking at this complaint or the (ethics) complaint from months ago, there’s somewhere along the line, we are approaching, very closely, this area where we’ve lost sight of children,” Gantt said.

As the district enters a formal investigation, Gantt believes the students of the CCSD should remain in the forefront of the district’s priorities.

“At some point, as adults, we have to decide, ultimately, what’s important as I engage with you, as you engage with me, what is important in life? What is the most important thing? Is it how I feel about myself? Is the most important thing me? Or, is it us together, as a community? And is it children?” Gantt said.

Want to learn more about the accredation complaint? Read ODYSSEY Editor-in-Cheif Elena Gilbertson Hall’s editorial about the issue.

Story by Mackenzie Caudill
Package by Owen Donnelly