A Coast school board broke open meetings law during high-stakes COVID talks, state says
The Harrison County School Board violated Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act during a meeting about the district’s plans to reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic this summer, the state Ethics Commission has concluded.
The commission issued the ruling in response to a complaint filed by Aldon Helmert, a parent who was an outspoken critic of the Harrison County School District’s leadership during the pandemic and who later ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the school board.
The school board violated the law by failing to record minutes at a July 13, 2020, work session where the board discussed their plan to reopen schools, and by failing to make available the documents they discussed at the session prior to the session itself, the commission found.
The opinion, available online, also offers a primer into Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act, written in 1972. The act requires essentially all government entities (with a few exceptions, including law enforcement and legislature subcommittees) to meet in public, and to ensure the public actually has the ability to attend by providing notice of the meetings.
The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that when there’s a dispute over the interpretation of the act, the right decision is the one that leads to greater public openness.
“However inconvenient openness may be to some, it is the legislatively decreed public policy of this state,” the Mississippi Supreme Court wrote in one opinion cited by the Commission in their finding against the Harrison County school board.
The Act essentially upholds one idea, said Henry Laird, an attorney who works on open meetings and public records cases and who has represented the Sun Herald: The public has a broad right to know what their officials are doing.
“Government is the people’s government, it’s not government’s government,” Laird said.
High-stakes decisions during the pandemic
Helmert became a regular at school board meetings in the late spring of 2020. He had become frustrated by the lack of opportunities to address the board, and by the hurdles he had to jump to get added to the agenda to voice his concerns.
On July 13, he arrived early for a regularly scheduled board meeting. When he got to the district administration building off U.S. 49, he learned that the board had met earlier for a work session to prepare the district’s return to school plan.
For many families, the district’s reopening policy would have many implications. At that point, almost all U.S. schools had been completely closed since mid-March of 2020. There was little solid data about the risks to children, teachers and community members of reopening schools while COVID-19 cases were climbing. Helmert felt the moment demanded maximum transparency.
“Everybody’s having to make life-changing decisions,” he said. “Whether somebody quits their job to care for their children in a homeschooling-type virtual environment, or whether they’re able to continue their employment by putting their children back in school.”
That evening, the board voted to reopen schools without a distance learning option, except in rare circumstances. That decision sparked a furor from parents, most of whom had not known ahead of time what the school district was considering.
Thousands of parents signed a petition asking for a distance learning option, and dozens packed subsequent meetings until the board changed course.
Issues raised in the complaint
Helmert filed his complaint a few days after the July 13 meeting. He raised three primary issues, according to the Commission.
- First, had adequate notice of the work session been provided to the public?
- Second, had documents used during the work session (in this case, drafts of the school reopening plans) been made available to the public ahead of time?
- And finally, had appropriate records of the session been kept?
The question of notice was disputed. Jodi Trosclair, an assistant to Superintendent Roy Gill, said in a sworn affidavit that she had posted notice of the work session online before 9 a.m. July 13, and on the building door.
Helmert said he never saw any notice online until after July 13, and he didn’t see any notice on the front door when he arrived. Trosclair said that was because she had taken it down when the work session started.
Facing contradictory testimony, the Commission ruled there was “insufficient evidence to find the board has violated the Open Meetings Act” on that count.
But no one disputed that minutes of the work session did not exist.
“I was told by Mrs. Trosclair that there were no minutes because they do not keep minutes on those,” Helmert told the commission. “Mr. Gill also said they do not keep minutes for those meetings. I asked if they even had notes indicating who was present, the matters discussed, and any actions taken. I was told that they do not have to record that information.”
The Ethics Commission ruled that, in fact, they do have to record that information, or at least create minutes recording who attended and the lack of action.
Laird pointed out that most people don’t have time to attend every public meeting, so they rely on minutes to understand what their elected officials are doing.
“If you didn’t have minutes, the public wouldn’t know what was done,” Laird said. “That’s the basis for having the minutes, is to let us know what went on and what did not go on. Sometimes it’s more important what didn’t happen as what did.”
The Commission also sided with Helmert in finding that the board had violated the act by failing to distribute to the public materials related to their Return to School plan considered at the work session and regular meeting.
A learning opportunity for government
Gill said the board had not known it was violating the Open Meetings Act prior to the Ethics Commission’s finding.
“We have reviewed their findings and will adhere to their Order,” he said in an email. “We were unaware of any violations committed during the ‘Work Session’ held. It is our intent to never be non-compliant and to refrain from further violations and comply strictly with the Open Meetings Act.”
Laird said he hoped the finding would help not only the Harrison County school board, but also other government agencies, better uphold their obligations under the Open Meetings Act.
“It encourages people to participate and have confidence in government,” he said.
“The Ethics Commission opinion here, I think, helps people have confidence in our government, by telling us we’re entitled to get this notice, these minutes and these documents.”
Helmert is still frustrated by what he sees as a lack of genuine transparency from the school board. While meeting agendas are posted online, meeting minutes are not. And the agendas can be skeletal.
“If you look at every agenda and lay them out side by side for two years, it would be very difficult to pick out the difference between January this year and January last year,” Helmert said. “It’s boiler plate.”
This story was originally published March 29, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
