An outburst during the superintendent’s report led to one man being escorted from the first Columbia County school board meeting Tuesday of 2022.
“You’re having conversations about our conversations with him,” said Eric Feldkamp before the board. “I have twice had to point out that the school district is in misdemeanor violation of open records law in order for them to move forward.”
Feldkamp expressed his grievance while Superintendent Steven Flynt was presenting the superintendent report. School board Chairman David Dekle said that Feldkamp was out of order, and Feldkamp was ushered out of the meeting by campus police.
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Feldkamp’s accusation was in response to a portion of Flynt’s address in which the superintendent noted that the school district’s administration had received more than 60 open records requests, in correspondences comprised of over 10,000 emails, addressing over a half million items, documents and attachments.
He further stated that five individuals were responsible for the emails, but he did not name them. Flynt suggested the possibility of increasing staffing to tend such large volumes of requests, in order to comply with open records law.
Flynt addressed various related concerns that have been raised by parents in recent months, many of them regarding an enduring, overarching unease with the prospect of critical race theory being included in school curriculums. Flynt emphasized the school district’s accordance with the State Board of Education’s resolution, passed June 3, 2021, to not include critical race theory concepts and standards in the curriculum.
“Since that time in June and October and even very recently, we’ve seen an effort by some to link many other programs and specific phrases and words to these movements,” said Flynt. “I’ll once again suggest that we all be very cautious to denounce specific terms before knowing how we use it apply them in our local school district.”
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Flynt mentioned the terms “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion;” “social-emotional learning,” an education practice focused on developing social and emotional skills; and “Panorama,” a platform for assessing student behavior and progress, which Flynt described as a “comprehensive behavior intervention program” that the district ultimately decided not to use.
“I would suggest that if and when we hear concerns or rhetoric that are broadly directed toward towards what we might call public education systems that we take the time to ask, what and how does this apply here in the Columbia County School District,” he said.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering Columbia County with The Augusta Press. Reach him at [email protected].
Good for Eric!!!!
Their action underlies exactly what Eric has been saying for some time now.
I am having a hard time understanding parts of this article, but as I see it, Mr. Feldkamp was indeed out of order since he interrupted Superintendent Flynt in the middle of a report he was giving. If, in fact, the Board has “received over 60 open records requests, in correspondences comprised of over 10,000 emails, addressing over a half million items, documents and attachments” it would appear to me that the Board is under attack and needs all the support it can get. It certainly does not need further attack by way of an interruption from the floor as the Superintendent is offering his report to the public. 10,000 emails? 500,000+ items, documents and attachments? FIVE individuals responsible? What is going on? And why was Superintendent Flynt interrupted as he brought this to light and asked for help?
Yes, I was out of order. I gathered up my belongings before interrupting and left when directed. I interrupted because he was publicly making false statements and disparaging parents with legitimate concerns. I get that some may not like the indecorum. Due to the board’s extreme tightening of public comment rules, there was no other way to address it at that meeting than to violate their rules.
I don’t think the story is very clearly written either. The 500,000 items, and the district may disagree with my characterization, is due to them very broadly interpreting my request for some documents that ought to have been generated by a couple of internal committees. I expected a response of a few dozen documents tops, but they’ve chosen to do a word search through their entire network structure. That isn’t what I asked them to do and I’ve tried to work with the district, including offering to modify my request, to make it manageable.
Yes, I agree with Jett: this story is a little confusing. What is with all the emails, and why did the guy interrupt the meeting? This needs a rewrite.