Straitjacket of Straight Thinking?

Bryant Hawkins

JPS Superintendent Lonnie Edwards has met unified resistance from school board members on some recent policy and personnel recommendations.

by Adam Lynch & Ward Schaefer
September 30, 2009

The Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees may be holding back its superintendent, but depending on whom you ask, that may not be a bad thing.

"(Superintendent Lonnie) Edwards … appears to wear a straitjacket, courtesy of the Jackson Public School's Board of Trustees," Eric Stringfellow wrote in his Clarion-Ledger column Monday. "Based on action and inaction from last week's school board meeting, the policy-making board has encroached on Edwards' administrative authority."

Stringfellow further bemoaned that the board seems "united in its efforts to micromanage Edwards and serve as the five-headed de facto superintendent."

The Clarion-Ledger columnist then went down a list of Edwards' proposals that the board apparently rejected or took no action on, all during a long, closed Sept. 28 session. The board took no action on the superintendent's recommendations for deputy superintendent for instruction or director of state and federal programs. Stringfellow also pointed out that the board outright rejected Edwards' recommendation to promote a middle-school assistant principal to principal at a different school, as well as his recommendation for a pay raise to one unnamed administrator.

The column came out Monday, three days after the board actually did confirm the assistant principal as principal. And the rejected pay raise actually entailed raises for two employees, not one.

Still, the board had been slow to respond to some of Edwards' policies and decisions over the last few months, and its caution is as evident in open meetings as in executive sessions. In August, the board decided not to approve some aspects of the district budget, including money for some new buses, textbooks and school nurses, citing the need for more information from the superintendent's staff. The board did approve the $230 budget million, but their hesitance on some issues revealed that the board has higher standards from their superintendent.

Board members took issue with the purchase of new books, arguing that another audit was necessary to justify spending $275,000 for new books on a student body population that is not showing significant growth. Board members also felt that the administration needed to get to work on paperwork allowing the salaries of some school nurses, temporarily supplied through a grant from Sen. Thad Cochran, to be transferred to the state Department of Medicaid.

More recently, on Sept. 21, board members questioned Edwards' recommendation for a worker's compensation insurance policy. Edwards' recommended policy, from the Dear Group, had the potential to save the district nearly $1 million over the old policy, but at a greater risk than one from Bottrell Insurance that was guaranteed to save the district roughly half a million. Calling Edwards' recommendation "inherently risky," board member Jonathan Larkin argued for the Bottrell policy.

Board President Sollie Norwood, whose support for school prayer and corporal punishment has brought him into conflict with Larkin in the past, agreed with Larkin on the insurance issue.

"Last year we were in the same place, talking about the same thing," Norwood said, alluding to the board's rushed choice of an insurance provider last fall: "I don't like my back being against the wall, but we don't have the information to make the best decision."

The board tabled the matter for the day and then approved the Bottrell policy on Sept. 25.

The board also forced reconsideration of a consulting contract to review the district's pay scale and salary structure. Edwards recommended that the district hire JBHM Education Group, a Jackson-based consulting company for the work. Board members H. Ann Jones and Delmer Stamps took Edwards to task for not looking to the Council of the Great City Schools, a nationwide coalition that JPS already belongs to and that provides services and consulting to its member districts. The district should get the most out of its $30,000-a-year membership in the coalition, Stamps said.

"This is a remote task," Stamps said. "You don't need to go to the district."

The district has since contacted the Council about the consulting services and is waiting on a response, Norwood told the Jackson Free Press on Sept. 28.

The details of the board's most recent refusals are hiding behind the shut doors of a closed session, although the board's refusals could stem from a lack of preparation on the part of the new superintendent.

"I was disappointed in the tone of the comments because as with any personnel issue, there's always additional information that cannot be shared with the public due to privacy issues," Larkin said of Stringfellow's comments. Larkin would provide no further details, though.

"I don't know where Eric got his information from," Norwood told the JFP. "I'm very confident that we're not micromanaging the superintendent."

Board member Ivory Phillips conceded that he has occasionally received information from the district too late to make an informed decision. "There have been times when I thought we didn't get stuff in a timely enough fashion for me to study it thoroughly," Phillips said.

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