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I arrived at the Stewart County Middle School just before 6:30 p.m.on January 13 to attend the advertised 7 p.m., Regular Session of the Stewart County Board of Education
I wanted to find out from school officials more information about a story published Jan. 11 in the Stewart Co. Standard titled, “Violations Found in Complaint Against School System.” A complaint had been filed by the parent of an SCHS student to the Tennessee Department of Education.
Among other issues, it was stated in the story TDE found evidence that both the school principal and the regular education teacher were not present for the entire IEP meeting of the parent’s child. The Stewart County school district acknowledged the principal had signed the child’s IEP paperwork outside the IEP meeting. (This is a concern to me because when I was a teacher at SCHS several years ago I was handed the signature page only of an IEP document and I was asked to sign it without reading the IEP. I told the principal then I would gladly sign off on the signature page ONLY AFTER I had the opportunity to read the IEP, but I refused to sign the signature page before I had read the document. I got called into his office and was given a talking to. I still refused to sign the IEP signature page without having read the full IEP, which is the law. I have had other teachers tell me they too were told to sign signature pages of IEPs without having the IEP to read. Several days after being called into the principal’s office on the matter we had a faculty meeting at the school and the school system’s Special Education Director told all teachers it was “Ok” to sign off on an IEP signature page without reading the IEP. After that meeting I immediately contacted General Counsel for Special Education with the Tennessee Department of Education with my concerns about being asked to sign off on an IEP without having first read the legal document. I was told by them as I knew I would, that the IEP should be reviewed by all team members prior to signing off on it.”
The Jan. 11, 2022 Standard story did not name the principal with the signature issues and I did not know if it was the current principal, former principal or principal who’d asked me to sign off an IEP in 2013 before I’d read it. (This indicates a pattern on signatures on IEP, in my opinion) I had other questions about other school issues I planned to bring forward to school officials on Jan. 13, 2022.
Just before 7 p.m. on Jan. 13 three elected school board members and the school board attorney came out of the locked middle school and said the meeting was cancelled because of Covid. There was a notice on the door saying there was a scheduled school board meeting that night, but no notice was on the door stating the meeting was cancelled. I asked if the meeting was cancelled what were they all doing inside together? I got no coherent response.
Days later I was told the school board members and attorney I had seen exiting the middle school had been in on an unadvertised Zoom meeting with other elected school board members. On the Zoom call were more elected school board members along with a Nashville attorney who is representing the school system in an ongoing lawsuit where allegations regarding the changing of students’ grades have been made in legal filings.
I went to the January 24 school board meeting that had been rescheduled from Jan. 13 to find out about the questions I had for the Jan. 13 meeting, along with other questions about other school issues. I also wanted to address what in my opinion is a possible violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act as the result of the Jan. 13 unadvertised meeting/zoom call. I had asked to be placed on the agenda to speak during the public comment section of the meeting, which I was allowed to do. In my understanding and reading of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act., aka, The Sunshine Law, the unadvertised meeting and Zoom meeting on Jan. 13 was a possible if not probable Sunshine Law violation and I wanted to address that directly to the board ,along with making known my other concerns. That was my purpose as a taxpayer.
Prior to the meeting I saw Stewart County Mayor Robin Brandon and Stewart County Commissioner Vince Gray talking. Half kidding I came up to them and asked if they were violating the Sunshine Law. Through my decades as a reporter and as a taxpayer and citizen of Stewart County, I have often asked this question of elected officials during the years when I see them gathered talking. Remember, I said I was half kidding. I WAS NOT ACCUSING THESE OFFICIALS of standing there at that time of breaking the Sunshine Law. However, there have been previous recent events where, in my opinion, these two and other county officials have possibly (if not probably) violated the Sunshine Law. Remember, I was half kidding. The other half that was not kidding was putting them both on notice that I am watching elected officials as they ‘navigate’ around the Sunshine Law. (I have documentation that possible Sunshine Law violations occurred while local officials discussed, in private, the recent state required every ten-year redistricting and reapportionment of Stewart County Commission districts. Mayor Brandon had told me prior to the final vote that he had been canvassing the county commissioners on how they would vote on the last proposed redistricting plan and he already knew what the outcome would be. I had told him then that counting votes and canvassing votes prior to taking a public vote was a clear violation of the Sunshine Law.)
On Jan. 24, as soon as I had said this to Brandon and Gray, Immediately Vince Gray got very loud and approached me at the meeting. He got so loud so quickly I asked him to “calm down before he had a stroke.” He was that mad and loud. An unbiased witness to this — Mendy Brown — has stated publicly Vince Gray, not David R. Ross, was the one who first got loud and confrontational. Gray and Brandon are the elected officials and they should have bowed to discretion if a taxpayer made a remark to them they did not like. After I told Commissioner Gray he needed to calm down before he had a stroke he got even louder and closer to me and I thought he was about to hit me. I was there at the Stewart County School Board meeting to make a public comment and ask questions to the school board and to the school board attorney and to the Nashville attorney representing the school board and in no way was I in the frame of mind to argue or physically fight with a county commissioner. I had made an offhand remark similar to those that Stewart Countians often make to each other. (Recently the owner/publisher of the Standard had made a remark to me at a public meeting and I made one back to him. No big deal.)
But Gray would not let it alone, he kept his loud tirade. He was verbally berating me and telling me I do do not know the Sunshine Law and I need to read it and I was standing there thinking, but not saying, “My master’s thesis in Journalism from Murray State was on the Tennessee Open Meetings Act (Sunshine Law) so I have read it and I do have a good grasp and understanding of the legal letter of the law along with the spirit of the law regarding open public meetings.
After a while of jawing back and forth with Gray — which I regret and had distracted me from all I wanted to say in the upcoming public comments section of the meeting, I did tell Gray if he wanted to hit me, and it seemed he did want to, I said to him:, “Go ahead. Hit me. You have first shot. And if you do everyone in here will watch me kick your big ass all round this cafeteria.” Gray continued to talk loudly to me and I went out into the hallway and asked one of the two sheriff’s deputies to come inside because Gray would not shut up. My feeling then and now were that Gray was uncontrollably emotional partially because I had placed on social media earlier in the day that I wanted to know the name of the principal who had the signature violation on the IEP that the Standard had written about and I had a feeling that Gray knew the identity of the principal with the IEP signature issue.I made my public comments to the school board outlining my concerns that the Sunshine Law had been possibly been violated on Jan. 13. I got no direct response from them. I had been distracted by the confrontation with the county commission that I had forgotten other issues I had wanted to bring up to the school board.
One issue I forgot to bring up was I wanted to ask the school board if they would or would not provide the names of the administrators involved in the incident during the school day on May 28, 2021 that resulted in a Stewart County Sheriff’s Department report being written along with an inquiry to the 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s office about a possible charge against a teacher in the building.There were some other school related issues I wanted clarification on, but I had forgotten to bring them up because I was still thinking about the episode with the county commissioner who is married to the current SCHS principal.
After the public comment portion of the Jan. 24 rescheduled meeting, school officials had a very brief public discussion about the Zoom meeting on Jan. 13. At this time it was revealed the school board, the Nashville attorney and the school board attorney were wanting to make a monetary offer for a settlement in the high-profile lawsuit on the alleged grade changes.That monetary settlement offer, it turns out, had been the reason for the unadvertised Zoom meeting Jan. 13, which included the three elected officials and the school board attorney at the middle school during the unadvertised meeting along with a Nashville attorney and other elected school board members on a zoom call..
The Nashville attorney, who apparently was in on the Jan. 13 zoom meeting was in attendance at the Jan. 24 school board meeting. During the course of the Jan. 24 meeting, the Nashville attorney responded to a question from a school official and said when asked a question something like “That is what we discussed (during the Jan. 13) meeting.” In my opinion and my understanding of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act, By the Nashville attorney admitting publicly on Jan. 24 during a tape recorded meeting that school issues had been discussed by elected school board members during a closed, unadvertised meeting on Jan. 13, the Nashville attorney had confirmed my opinion that the Jan. 13 unadvertised Zoom meeting was a violation of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act. I am waiting for my responses and requests for documentation from school and county officials on these and other matters. As a side note, Vince Gray and I have not seen eye to eye since a few years ago when he wrote publicly on a social media site that Land Between the Lakes needs to be sold to private developers and I strongly called him out publicly on that statement …. David R. Ross – Stewart County taxpayer.
