LR5 school board moves to censure current member. It’s unclear why
The Lexington-Richland 5 school board could vote to censure one of its board members at its meeting on Monday.
The public agenda for Monday’s meeting includes a possible censure action against board member Rebecca Blackburn Hines.
The agenda gives no indication what the censure motion would be for, and a board officer contacted by The State Friday morning declined to discuss the agenda item.
“You’ll have to attend the meeting,” board secretary Nikki Gardner said. Calls to board chair Jan Hammond and vice chair Ken Loveless were not immediately returned. Hines also did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Hines was most recently in the news as the author of a letter to state education superintendent Molly Spearman about the district’s policy on controversial library books. Spearman chided the district in her response for not moving proactively to remove books which the S.C. Education Department had recommended schools screen.
Lexington-Richland 5 pushed back against that assertion, saying it is following district policy and legal precedent in handling some controversial titles. Despite complaints from some parents aired during school board meetings, the district said that as of last week it had not received any formal written complaints to review its library offerings.
A censure is a non-binding resolution expressing a public body’s disapproval of an official’s actions.
This would be the second formal censure motion taken up by the school board in the past year. In June, the board voted 4-2 to censure Ed White for violating the confidentiality of the board’s closed door executive session. White had publicly resigned at the previous meeting and accused Loveless, Gardner and board member Catherine Huddle of bullying then-Superintendent Christina Melton out of her job.
The board also initiated a lawsuit against a former superintendent for criticizing the board’s hiring of an interim superintendent. Stephen Hefner was one of several former officials who wrote to the district’s accrediting agency questioning the contract with then-Interim Superintendent Akil Ross, which was structured as an agreement with Ross’s education consulting firm, HeartEd LLC. Ross has since been hired as the permanent, full-time superintendent.
Although the accrediting agency, Cognia, ultimately took no action on the complaint, the board voted to sue Hefner for attempting to interfere with the contract and for bringing the district into disrepute, demanding he apologize for sending the letter. The board reaffirmed the lawsuit with a 4-3 vote in December. Hefner has counter-sued, saying the board is attempting to violate his First Amendment free speech rights.
Hines previously voted against both the censure of White and the lawsuit against Hefner.
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 2:49 PM.
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