Lexington 1 board ineffective, ‘clueless’ about district troubles, board member says

Years of bad blood between Lexington 1 leaders and freshman school board member Jada Garris came to a boil this week, in what was supposed to be a bookend to a long legal battle.

In a Jan. 2 letter to board chairperson Cynthia Smith, Garris took parting shots, slamming the school board over alleged inefficiency, lack of transparency and inability to govern the largest school district in Lexington County.

“Bullying from board officers/members only fuels my desire to do what is right and expose the self-serving politicians who like to show up for photo ops, school tours, and appreciation lunches, but are clueless as to what’s really going on on the front lines,” Garris wrote.

The deeply critical letter was made public last week when Garris’ attorneys filed it in court alongside an affidavit related to the ongoing lawsuit between Garris and Lexington 1.

Smith, in an email to The State Thursday morning, said Garris’ filing was a response to a Dec. 20 letter school board officers sent Garris after it was revealed during a late October trial that Garris had secretly recorded at least part of a closed-door meeting.

In that December letter, which Smith provided to The State, board officers admonished Garris for knowingly breaking Lexington 1’s board policy and jeopardizing the privacy of “a student’s sensitive health matter.” Elected officials are permitted by law to discuss some private information in closed-door executive sessions.

Smith, who has been on the Lexington 1 school board for two decades, said in her written statement to The State Thursday that the board has “always put children first, supported our employees, and conducted business in a dignified manner.”

“I find it incredibly disrespectful that one board member would say such things about her fellow board members,” the statement said. “If Mrs. Garris has questions or concerns, she needs to bring those to the board. Sniping from the pages of The State newspaper is not the way.”

Garris used her letter to defend her complaints and to strike back, painting the leaders of a well-regarded, high-achieving school district as unconcerned and disconnected from daily troubles faced by students, teachers and staff.

Lexington 1 educates nearly 27,000 students and employs more than 1,900 teachers, according to district figures from 2019. Its schools, teachers and school administrators are routinely recognized in South Carolina and nationally for high test scores and other achievements.

Still, Garris wrote that board members are “purposefully shielded from reality” because of a policy that disallows board members to visit schools without first seeking approval from Lexington 1 Superintendent Gregory Little.

“If this board is really interested in empowering each child to design the future” — a reference to Lexington 1’s mission statement — “they would put their boots on the ground and spend a few days in a classroom — from the first bell to the last bell and stay there until the last bus/car rider is picked up,” she wrote.

Lexington 1’s policy on board members visiting schools reflects the recommendations of the South Carolina School Boards Association, which encourages school visits but warns that unplanned visits can cause unnecessary disruptions. But to Garris, the layers of approval keep school district leaders from understanding what schools are like day-to-day.

Smith did not respond to questions from The State about how often she and other board members visit schools or how she keeps a pulse on what is going on in the district she oversees. In a written statement, Smith said she would prefer to discuss the board’s involvement and the district’s student-focused initiatives when it is not “in the context of a story generated by and about Mrs. Garris and her lawsuit.”

Garris, a parent of two Lexington 1 students and a former bus driver for the district, has long positioned herself as a woman of the people and an outsider fighting for open government. In the process, she has frustrated a board that seeks to present a united, positive front.

Before being elected, Garris studied open records laws, the minutiae in school district policies, and routinely combed through Lexington 1 financial records, meeting minutes and other documents. She sparred with district leadership over email, social media and at public meetings — a practice that has continued into her second year as a board member. She often opposes relatively benign or procedural votes during public meetings.

Her opposition and quarrelsome reputation have earned Garris both fans and critics.

In her letter to Smith, Garris raised questions about the board’s productivity, especially in light of the various taxpayer-funded conferences board members attend each year.

“When does this board plan to bring ideas and initiatives to the district for consideration? Why do board members attend conferences but come back empty handed?” the letter said.

However, school board meeting minutes from 2019 include briefings by vice chair Anne Marie Green and Smith, who attend several conferences each year. Green detailed the priorities that South Carolina school board members voted on at a legislative conference hosted by the state school boards association. She and Smith also told other board members about sessions they attended at a legislative conference hosted in Washington, D.C., by the National School Boards Association.

Like Smith, Garris did not specify what tools, resources or lessons she learned at conferences and used in her work. Garris instead said she often finds ideas in school boards association newsletters and that she only attends one conference per year — the annual South Carolina school boards gathering — because it’s the one she considers most worthwhile.

Garris’ letter also includes other, wide-ranging allegations of impropriety.

She accused the board of ignoring anonymous letters “from what I assume to be employees” because of the nature of the complaints, she told The State.

“...If the problems were addressed I wouldn’t still be receiving phone calls from employees in those schools complaining of the same issues,” Garris wrote to The State.

Smith did not respond to this allegation.

The letter also included reference to the district’s alleged maltreatment of a former employee, who later died by suicide. The maltreatment allegation was unsubstantiated in the letter. A school district spokesperson and Smith told The State they could not comment on private employee matters.

Garris’ legal fight with the school district began when she filed a lawsuit in December 2017, before she was elected to the board in November 2018. In the lawsuit, Garris accused the district of illegally shielding records from the public and failing to follow laws that govern how elected officials conduct public business.

Garris was represented by attorneys Taylor Smith and Drew Whitaker. Smith has represented The State Media Co. and the S.C. Press Association in other cases.

After a trial in late October, Circuit Court Judge William McKinnon ruled that Garris was correct in just one of her legal claims, which was about how board members entered into executive session at a meeting in November 2017. The school district has since changed the way it enters into executive session.

McKinnon ruled in favor of the district on the other four allegations, saying Lexington 1 did not intentionally violate the Freedom of Information Act and that most issues Garris raised could be seen, at most, as minor technical violations.

However, both sides have used the legal fight to publicly express their grievances, through filings, testimony and public statements.

In a filing Lexington 1 attorney David Lyon made in Lexington County court last week, he described the lawsuit by Garris as “hyper-technical, pedantic, and doctrinaire,” and said Garris used the Freedom of Information Act “as a trap and a bludgeon, not a tool for ensuring open government.”

In a Rock Hill courtroom on Jan. 27, McKinnon denied both Garris’ and the school district’s motions to reconsider his ruling.

Another hearing is scheduled for March to settle the issue of attorney’s fees. Lexington 1’s attorneys argue in a filing that Garris’ request for reimbursement is improper because she is an elected official and her attorney’s fees would be paid with public funds.

Lyon wrote in the filing that any attorney’s fees awarded to Garris and her defense would “benefit her (or her attorneys) to the detriment of the district’s taxpayer funded general fund for which (Garris), as a board member, is a steward ... She should either relinquish her seat on the board or forgo seeking” reimbursement of her legal expenses.

Lexington 1’s attorneys also insisted that because McKinnon only found in Garris’ favor in one of her five claims, Garris’ attorneys should receive a correspondingly small sum, if anything.

“Ultimately, (Garris’) FOIA requests and subsequent lawsuit have uncovered no wrongdoing, dishonesty, deception, corruption, or other efforts by the board to prevent the public from knowing the district’s business,” the Jan. 22 filing by Lexington 1 attorneys said.