mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684
DURHAM -- The Durham school board unanimously enacted two new policies on bullying and harassment and revised its student code of conduct Thursday night. The changes were made in response to the School Violence Prevention Act passed this year.
An otherwise routine agenda item took on an unusual air when Karen Alexander, the mother of a recently suspended Hillside High School student, addressed the board during a public comment period. Alexander complained of a conflict of interest because the hearing officer in her son's case was the daughter of school board Chairwoman Minnie Forte-Brown and the appeal of her son's case went to the school board.
Forte-Brown attempted to silence Alexander, to no avail.
After the chairwoman seemed resigned to letting Alexander finish, board member Stephen Martin spoke up. "Madame chairwoman, this is out of order," he said.
Forte-Brown told Alexander that she was out of order, adding, "I am asking you that you please stop at this point."
A deputy walked to the podium, calling to mind occasions from a few years back when arrests were made at Durham school board meetings. But Alexander peacefully left the podium when the deputy asked her to do so. During the board's subsequent closed session, she approached reporters and school officials to discuss the matter.
Forte-Brown later said that Alexander was out of order because she was alluding to a confidential student hearing. Commenters at local public meetings are generally discouraged from directly attacking employees.
Martin asked that the policies be approved without second readings. The panel quickly voted to do that but effectively voided the results because it had done so too quickly for board member Leigh Bordley to ask for discussion.
Bordley wanted a second reading of the policies in order to garner more public feedback.
"Is there a timing issue?" board member Heidi Carter asked.
Fellow panelist Fredrick Davis observed that the new policies were in line with the new law and that there was nothing blocking the board from taking up revisions to the policies in future committee meetings.
Martin, who earlier had noted that the policies were extensively discussed in a previous committee meeting, observed that the proposed policy changes had been posted on the district Web site.
After board attorney Ann Majestic pointed out that the law requires adoption of the policies by Dec. 31, Bordley yielded. But she said that public comment on the matter is still welcome.
The new policies in part defines "bullying or harassing behavior [as] any repeated, systematic pattern of gestures or written, electronic or verbal communications, or any physical act or any threatening communication on school property; at any school sponsored function; on a school bus ... that: (a) places a student or school employee in actual and reasonable fear of harm to his or her person or damage to his or her property; or (b) creates or is certain to create a hostile environment by substantially interfering with or impairing a student's educational performance, opportunities or benefits."
