UPDATED: The Rat Crap Controversy

I’m smelling a rat (and some rat problems) in the Halifax County School System…

9 months later, rat droppings incident comes to light

Wow. I got a lot of problems with this, and who wouldn’t? In fact, I’ve got enough problems with this to put them on a Big List.

• This is now coming to the public’s attention after nine months? – This is another event that doesn’t speak well for the openness of the Halifax County School System. Remember the big mold controversy (which fizzled out and is deserving of a SouthsideCentral article of its own)? I wouldn’t expect the school board to issue a public statement saying “We’ve Got Rats!”, but I would expect a parental notification to be given out by the affected school.
• The whistle-blowing cafeteria worker lost her job. – The school board can always retreat to “This is a personnel issue.” and drop this issue completely. But as it stands now, it looks like we may have a case of retribution against Emma Sims’ actions.  The school system’s ineptitude and potential coverup has made this look very bad.
• The lines of communications and chain of command inside the school system are horrible. – The buck should stop at the principal’s office, and the principal should be made aware of everything happening in their school. There should be no alternative or exception to that policy, ever.
• This issue was discussed in a closed session. – This is a very serious problem. I’ve got on record with my praise of school board chairman Kim Farson but I’ve got no problem blasting her for this statement. As chairman, she knows exactly what can and can’t be discussed in a closed session. I’m also blasting every other school board member for this because they should know the rules as well. Whenever the board came out of that closed session, they had to pass a resolution saying that only things that needed a closed session were discussed. I see absolutely no reason a rat control issue falls under those requirements, so I am saying that the Halifax County School Board lied in the vote when they came out of that specific session. I’m also saying that because of this incident, I no longer trust the Halifax County School Board when they retreat to a closed session. Yes, those are strong words and I stand behind them. Closed sessions are a necessary evil and should only be used as sparingly as possible. It’s clear to me that the school board violated the law and as such, they’ve lost my trust in this regard.
• This entire episode including the School Board response was just too rehearsed. – After the fired cafeteria worker spoke in the public comment section of the meeting, Superintendent Merle Herndon just amazingly was able to call up Lori Hale, the director of food services who just happened to have a prepared statement about the timeline of the events. Wow, didn’t all of that just fall into place so neatly? I’ve completely dismissed this objection after learning more (notes down below)
  

This is crap (and literally about crap). The immediate problem is solved but the underlying problems are still there and they’re much more than toast with a side order of rat crap on it.

Halifax County citizens deserve openness and transparency from their elected school board on every issue including this one. If the cafeteria worker lost her job for no justifiable cause, she deserves the job back and full retroactive pay. The school board and superintendent needs a complete retraining on what closed meetings are specifically for. If something comes up that doesn’t qualify for a closed meeting, that issue needs to be stopped and then discussed in open session. It’s time for the Halifax County School Board to start doing the right things all of the time.

UPDATE #1: After publishing this article, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from people that have more knowledge of the points that I’ve raised.

I’m now going to add some remarks to each of my five objections based on what I’ve found out.

• This is now coming to the public’s attention after nine months? – I’ve found out that the school board found out about these issues in July, even though the problems were well resolved by then. Although I feel that six months isn’t much better than nine months, I’m comfortable in saying that the school board did what they needed to do in trying to get to the bottom of this issue. There’s still a lot of problems with the process on how this was handled, and I’ll address those below. The school board looked incompetent because of these process failures and I hope that they correct those failures in order to regain the public’s trust.
• The whistle-blowing cafeteria worker lost her job. – From what I’ve been able to get from background sources, I now believe that the chances of this being a retribution firing are much lower than I did before. Emma Sims, the cafeteria worker, has recently been playing the race card (which always makes me mad) with absolutely no evidence to back her racism allegations up. Her public stories on Facebook have became inconsistent, with her now claiming that contaminated food was served. Those strong allegations with no evidence or support to back them up severely undermines her credibility. There was a rat crap issue that was handled, and no one has denied that… but I’m having a hard time believing anything else from Sims’ statements.
• The lines of communications and chain of command inside the school system are horrible. – Nothing has changed my mind on this position. I would love to see the school board issue an “If you see something, say something” directive that any school principal be notified of any abnormal occurrence on any part of the school.  It would be the principal’s prerogative to notify the superintendent if they felt it was needed, and the superintendent’s prerogative to notify the school board. The school board employs the principal to be the ultimate boss of the school in its entirety and the principal must have all information to perform that job properly.
• This issue was discussed in a closed session. – I’ve still got strong objections to this and something needs to be done about this problem. I’ve found out that the school board requested an investigation of the rat crap problem and that investigation report contained statements from other employees. The “statements from other employees” does fall within the closed meeting guidelines, but the rat crap investigation of itself does not. I would like to see that the school board (or other elected bodies) handle what has do be done in the closed session then come out and talk about what should be in open session. Employees’ names and statements could have been easily redacted. By keeping everything behind closed doors as they did, it gave the school board the appearance of looking incompetent once everything finally came out and also the horrible appearance of trying to cover this issue up. I’m withdrawing my complete lack of trust with the Halifax County School Board on this, but only with a renewed attempt to only use the closed sessions for what little is necessary.
• This entire episode including the School Board response was just too rehearsed. – This issue got cleared up rather easily as I saw that Emma Sims put herself down for the public comment session more than a week in advance. I now understand why school personnel was ready with all of their information because they had a good idea of what she was going to talk about. This objection is completely dismissed.

I’ve dismissed one objection (the preparedness of the school staff and the meeting), and sustained one (the lack of communication and the process failures). I’ve also significantly changed my thoughts of the retribution angle, as I am highly doubtful retribution is a factor. I’ve still got problems with the timeline and delays but I understand that was the failure of communication processes. I’ve also still got objections with the potential misuses of closed sessions but I hope that the school board will now recognize how to avoid that problem in the future.

I can change my mind on issues, and I’ve got no problem doing it while telling my readers why. I’m not going to make my strong earlier comments disappear because I stand behind what I say when I said it. I appreciate all of the feedback that I’ve gotten so far on this article.