The Lady that will be appointed – her name was dropped a couple of time in comments here, I’m sure she will make a fine trustee.
As for outgoing Trustee Joan Thomas, her goose was cooked by her own hand, almost one year ago to the day:
Siblings working for Bay school district an ethical concern, says commission – Justin Vicory
Either the superintendent or the business manager of Bay St. Louis–Waveland School District — who are brother and sister — should resign from office to avoid the appearance of nepotism, a Mississippi Ethics Commission opinion says.
Yet the majority of Bay–Waveland School Board members disagreed, and recently voted 4 to 1 to approve an additional 18-month contract for business administrator John McCraw, as well as a contract for Superintendent Vikki Landry, his sister.
And the so called Chinese firewall the high priced lawyers constructed to rationalize and prettify such nepotism? It is bullshit, or put another way if it weren’t, the exchange where the lawyers advised the school board in an official meeting would not have been purposely omitted from the record and the business manager would to this day not be presenting cash balances to his sister for the School Board to approve. It’s sad folks:
At the February meeting, board attorney Ronnie Artigues and James Keith, a longtime education attorney with the North Pike and Pearl River County school boards, told the board it was acceptable for them to appoint an employee other than Landry for McCraw to report to. In response, the board appointed Kristen Ladner and Cherie Labat as assistant superintendents.
School board meetings are open to the public, and an audio recording is normally taken and saved. But when Lana Noonan, a member of political watchdog group Hancock County Alliance for Good Government, contacted the central office secretary to get a copy of the February recording, the conversation about McCraw and Landry was not on the tape.
The flawed decision making that created a mess in the district’s elementary schools, along with multiple assistant superintendents to go with the family at the central office has to be fixed folks. Tonight’s school board appointment will flip the Board majority away from those that would disregard state ethics opinions.