RPS RECAP: May 15, 2023 (Pt 1)
Legal: (Un)Settled
2019
It’s November. RPS engagement is ablaze over the plan to rezone and integrate four West End elementary schools. Jonathan Young watches, bemused, while many of his colleagues fall victim to the various dogged pursuits of mostly-privileged families. (The “white” is silent, and I’m guilty as charged.) He’d long since abstained from the battle, going all-or-nothing with his transformational “Prioritize Parental Choice NOT Parent Zip-code Plan” to eliminate school zones altogether. Instead, he’s spent the last few months chipping away at his campaign promises to reduce RPS’ burden on taxpayer dollars, or at least maximize their efficiency.
He’s gone through the budget and identified legal services as a large expenditure the Board should look into, and initiated an “Ad Hoc Legal Committee” to do just that. He is joined by two of his particularly-harried colleagues, Doerr and Barlow. (Seriously. If either of you are reading this, I must know - how did you have the time??) Per the meeting minutes, their goals include:
Review what was currently being done with regard to legal services.
Review [what’s been done in] other districts within the region and Commonwealth with comparable demographics.
Determine the objectives of legal services.
Get a valid comparison of what other districts were doing.
Ultimately, a majority of that (3-person) committee conclude that the division is best served by our current law firm, and Hey, let’s look into it again in 6 months.
2020
Whoopsie, we’ve got ourselves a once-in-a-century pandemic and a Civil Rights uprising in our streets. Now is not the time!
The whole matter sits on the back burner until a particularly fiery Board Meeting 15 months later.
2021
The first round of fireworks begin when Mariah White makes a motion to receive advanced notice of any “likely” dismissal or disciplinary action against RPS employees. Or - as Doerr notes - a Board-attempt to “intervene preemptively with [the administration’s] hiring and firing decisions.”
Young wants to “collaborate” with the administration on personnel matters.
Gibson believes this is necessary oversight, and expresses concern about recently fired staff.
White… well, she goes back and forth with Board Attorney Lilly over the actual meaning and consequence of this (her?) motion. It was long and wordy - as though written by Young or Gibson - and White did not appear to have a full understanding of its intended impact. [Watch]
As is so often the case in RPS governance - this motion is personal. It is Board retaliation for Chief Operation Officer Alana Gonzalez’ firing of the Procurement Director who had recently overseen the selection of a food services contract that violated federal meals standards, and opened the district up to a potential protest and legal/disciplinary action. (Per a VDOE complaint, or so I understand it. I’m not fluent in procurement.)
Gibson is sympathetic to the Procurement Director, who shares her passionate criticism of the division’s so-called “BOLD leadership.” She also thinks COO Gonzalez (his boss) should have been fired for this scandal instead.
Young is likely acting in the interest of one or more of his (long-standing and ongoing) inappropriate working relationships with Operations (Facility, Procurement) staff. This department has a documented culture of I do what I want, and resent administrative oversight they’ve grown accustomed to working without. They’re all too willing to violate Policy 7-1.3 on Young’s behalf, and routinely sneak behind the backs of (multiple) COOs to do it.
White’s motives are less clear. She has a procurement background and has, herself, said that division policy ought to hold the procurement director accountable for vetting contracts. (See “Procurement Policy”) I suspect her support is less about the power she’s grabbing, and more about who she’s grabbing it from, but cannot be sure.
Whatever their reason, the trio are challenged by Attorney Lilly. She jumps in to “register a concern” or two about this “problematic” motion. [Watch]
This isn’t a thing Boards do. It’s brazen overreach. Besides, the policy we have now is “standard across all divisions.”
It’s a conflict of interest, and intervening in personnel matters opens up the Board to a lawsuit.
Motion fails.
Gibson, White, and Young are back at it again a few agenda items later, when they execute a rather uncoordinated attempt to interfere with the administration’s process of finding and vetting candidates to design the new George Wythe High School. They propose a few amendments to that RFP, including aggressive deadlines and a provision that allows them to serve on the selection committee.
Kamras is flabbergast at the suggestion of pulling and rewriting the RFP that “took quite literally 20 hour days and distraction from transportation, food services, and other things to get… done and out by August 31.”
He describes the burden on his existing staff, who have worked “to the point where they are getting ill, where their families don’t see them, where marriages are stressed because there are no more hours in the day to do everything that this body is asking us to do.” [Watch]
They’ve been trying to hire dedicated staff to man the Board’s new (after-thought) construction department, but they haven’t even been able to get people to apply because “most people worth their salt in this world watch our Board meetings and don’t want to have anything to do with this process, to be quite frank.” Construction companies in the area have told the Superintendent that “they wouldn’t recommend anybody to come to RPS right now anyway, given the dysfunction that they see with this process.”
The rest of the Board cannot believe this second wave of gross overreach:
“I think that we are seriously crossing over into working for the administration vs governing the administration…” Doerr
“So my question for the Board is: are we going to tell the administration how to implement this process? Because if we are, what do we need an administration for? What do we need legal for?...We need to understand our role as Board Members.” Page
“Someone tonight mentioned collaboration, but I don’t want to do the Superintendent’s job. That’s his job. That’s not mine. And what - How many RFPs do we review anyway? I’m not aware of any since I’ve been on the Board.” Burke
Then Attorney Lilly jumps in again with another party-pooper objection. This whole Board-on-Selection-Committee thing is questonably-legal and highly unethical.
“It would not be appropriate for Board members to sit on an evaluation committee, to vet the proposals, and then vote on the contract. That is wholly outside of any processes that Boards take on these matters.” [Watch]
Mariah White insists: “You can stand there and watch.”
“That’s just not part of the process for these types of contracts. The board is independent of it, so watching and scoring - I mean, when the contract comes to you for a vote, that’s when you can look at the rubric of scoring and all that stuff, when it comes to you for a vote after all that is done. That keeps you all out of any types of conflicts that could be lodged against you, any protest against you.”
🪴 Note: A “protest” is when a company or individual who participated in the bidding process takes issue with how the government handled the process or awarded a contract. (Aka, they suspect Fraud/Corruption)
If the process looks corrupt, the Virginia Department of General Services (DGS) can investigate the Board for misconduct.
If the process is corrupt, RPS could be fined, disciplined, and forced to re-issue the contract.
If the investigation determines a Board member biased the selection process, that individual could face criminal charges, fines, and/or removal from office, depending on the severity of the misconduct.
It’s bad-news-bears, and their lawyer is - as cautiously as she can - trying to save them from their own poor judgment.
Twice in one night, Gibson, Young, and White have made/supported motions that look a whole lot like corruption, and their Board Attorney has told them so.
So, 3 minutes later, when Gibson says hey, let’s replace our legal representation, it reeks of retaliation.
On October 4th, Gibson makes a same-night motion to secure new legal services, but “following a brief discussion on introducing motions outside of Board Action on the same night of the school board meetings, Ms. Gibson agreed to defer the vote until the next meeting of the Board, but expressed the desire to have a vote taken then.” (Meeting Minutes)
On October 18, Gibson haggles with a “passive aggressive” Chairwoman Burke over the timing, but ultimately motions “that the School Board direct the Administration to develop an RFP for school board legal services by March 1, 2022.”
Young seconds the proposal. They’re sure this’ll save the district money.
It passes 7:1, with one abstention.
2022
In February, 2022, the Board receives the draft RFP. New Chairwoman, Dr. Harris-Muhammed asks her colleagues to “provide feedback to the superintendent by Friday [February 25th, 2022]...” so that Kamras can “get it [the RFP] out the door” by the Board’s March 1st deadline.
But, it doesn’t go out the door.
Instead, Dr. H-M holds onto it, defying the Board’s October motion.
She starts to slip a “Legal Discussion” onto the agenda again, but it becomes a 2-time casualty of her trademark long, unproductive meetings. It spends 6 months lost in the sea of deferred agenda items between February and September:
8.03 Receive update on Chromebook audit.
6.07 Receive an update on Policy 3-2.1 Annual Operating Budget.
3.08 Recognition of VBSA 2022 Southside Spring Regional Forum Art Contest Winners.
5.03 Receive Head Start Governance Training and first read of Head Start Grant.
5.05 Receive an update on School Board Governance training dates.
5.06 Receive an update on School Board retreat dates.
7.01 Receive an update on Goal 3: Academics.
10.03 Receive school board governance training updates.
10.04 Receive school board retreat update.
6.04 Receive update on curricular materials audit.
9.03 Receive update on The Council of Great City Schools retreat and interviews.
9.04 Receive update on VSBA Governance Training.
5.02 Receive for first read 2022-2023 SCORE.
5.03 Receive for first read Title Grants.
5.04 Receive for first read Wireless Access Points contract.
5.05 Receive for first read contract over $250K - Specialized Behavioral and Support Services.
5.06 Receive Extended Day update.
6.03 Discuss facilities assessment.
5.02 Discuss formation of a Teacher Retention Task Force.
5.03 Discuss formation of Equity Committee.
5.04 Discuss Legal Services Request for Proposals.
5.05 Discuss School Board policy for Student Cell Phone Usage.
7.02 Receive update from RPS Foundation.
7.03 Discuss Moore Street and 13 Acres boundaries.
7.04 Discuss Latino Community Taskforce.
7.05 Discuss legal counsel.
The Board is totally caught off guard when they finally revisit their Legal options on September 19, 2022 - nearly a year after passing a motion to issue the RFP. Nobody* knew that the RFP had never gone out, much less why.
*Except Gibson, Harris-Muhammed, maybe Young, and the Superintendent they’d told to stand-down.
Mariah White bucks at this revelation, saying of the RFP: “We actually voted as a Board to get new legal counsel… so why are we going back on it?” [Watch]
The Chairwoman offers some wordsalad about transparency and explains her deference to “a Board Member” who had made “a request to discuss legal services, for in-house services,”
White’s not buying it, insisting: “We did [already] do this.”
The mystery colleague - and architect of the original legal-RFP motion - is Rep Gibson. She explains: “I don’t support at this time an RFP for legal services...” In-house counsel might be cheaper (though she offers no cost-analysis), and maybe they’ll have fewer conflicts of interest than a big law firm. She makes two same-night motions to pursue in-house legal counsel. Both fail.
Her colleagues aren’t opposed to in-house counsel, they’re just (still) opposed to same-night motions, and want to do their research first.
“It doesn’t sound like we’re ready with all the details [to vote on this] tonight, but I welcome this conversation in the future.” (Doerr)
Besides, the Board can’t afford to wait any longer. Their current counsel, Attorney Lilly, gave them notice: She’s outta there by June 30, 2023.
In the end, Dr. H-M’s hoodwinked colleagues once again instruct her to “move forward… with the RFP for legal services, given the previous vote to put out an RFP for legal services.” (Meeting Minutes)
Finally, we’re getting somewhere, right?!
Wrong.
The Legal Services RFP sits “on the street,” unpursued by potential vendors for several months. The administration repeatedly extends the closing date and refreshes the listing, but their search is unproductive. As was the case with construction staff, they’re left to cast line after line, desperate for the nibble of new talent, while the Board dances along the edge of the pond, scaring away all the “fish” with their chaotic (and often hostile) behavior.
2023
When the Board finally receives a few bids in January, 2023, Rep Gibson again asks to deviate from the standard RFP process with a now-familiar request to sit on the RFP’s Evaluation Committee.
Her colleagues refuse for all the same “that looks sketchy” reasons that Attorney Lilly had advised in 2021. (She repeats that advice now, too, just for good measure.)
Then, on May 1st, the Evaluation Committee brings two finalists forward for Board consideration. Each are qualified and vetted law firms that are ready and willing to begin legal services in June.
In a twist of irony, this 2-year retaliatory effort disguised as an attempt to save taxpayer dollars will actually cost nearly double ($700k) what the district currently pays for Attorney Lilly and her law firm ($400k). The Board is sticker-shocked.
In-house counsel is starting to look pretty good. A couple of lawyer salaries better fits their budget, and they can always outsource more complicated cases to an outside firm.
But it’s now May 15, and there is no possible way they’ll be able to hire a small in-house legal team in the weeks before Attorney Lilly’s contract ends.
They concoct a plan to use the recommended ($700k) firm temporarily while they build out an in-house legal team. It’s not exactly what the Board advertised, but hey - the terms of the contract allow them to cancel with 30 days notice, so what’s the harm?
We have no indication that the new firm is interested in this new plan. (They, too, can exit the contract at any time.)
The Board approves the contract 7:1:1, and instruct the superintendent to get started hiring a couple of in-house attorneys.
Gibson abstains and takes a moment to “express frustration.” She is “regretful that we didn’t move forward with this sooner so we could avoid the situation we are now in.” She wields these words as if to say I told you so; having forgotten, I guess, that every delay up to this point has been a direct consequence of her behind-the-scenes shenanigans, unwillingness (impatience?) to follow Board norms, and/or the retaliatory, mean-spirited, “dysfunctional” reputation that she and others have built over the last 2+ years.
She is, at least, relieved to be rid of the RFP process. Now she and other concerned Board members can interview/hire attorneys directly, and ensure that the Board is well-represented for potential legal battles to come. (See: “Will they? Won’t they?”)
That story again, by the numbers:
575 days between the motion to put out a legal services RFP, and approving a contract.
$300K additional expense to taxpayers
6 months spent secretly defying their own Board directive
5 same-night motions
2 industries repelled by Board behavior, and
1 under-appreciated, maligned, attorney who I hope has a date with a white sand beach and a mai tai come July 1st. Maybe she’ll be joined by former COO Gonzalez and Chief of Staff Hudacsko, who similarly resigned in the face of persistent Board retaliation.
Dysfunctional, though, is far more subjective. So I went to emotion-less A.I. to ask “How might a School Board earn a “dysfunctional” reputation?” I’ll let you decide for yourself if that label is fair:
A school board may earn a "dysfunctional" reputation through infighting, lack of transparency, ineffective leadership, inconsistent decision-making, failure to address concerns, and involvement in legal or ethical violations. This can result in a loss of public trust and challenges in effectively governing the school system.
That’s it for today. There are other (much shorter) updates to come from the May 15th meeting, but I thought this walk down memory lane was a worthy sidebar. Tune in next week for updates on:
School Attendance
The Final-ish Budget (I only have the patience to write like, 1 more freaking sentence about this!)
CIP-Palooza
Retention & Hiring Incentives