School boards association feared coming to Burke County

After being "bombarded" with "hate mail," the North Carolina School Boards Association refused to help the Burke County Board of Education search for a new superintendent.

Begged for its assistance, NCSBA took on the task under strict rules including a stipulation that none of its personnel would have to visit Burke County.

This week, the school board has a series of meetings with applicants for the superintendent's job. NCSBA's chief legal counsel, Allison Schafer, arranged for the interviews at a Charlotte hotel 90 miles away from Morganton.

The story came out Tuesday in Superior Court during board Chair Tracy Norman's testimony in the school board's lawsuit against the county commissioners.

Larry McMahon, the county commissioners' attorney, asked Norman during cross-examination why the school board needed to hire a special counsel (the board already employed Morganton attorney Jon Jones as the schools' attorney).

The board originally retained partners Richard Schwartz and Brian Shaw of Raleigh to defend the school board against a series of lawsuits filed in May, including former Superintendent David Burleson's breach-of-contract suit.

Norman said the board enlarged the scope of Schwartz & Shaw's duties to help the schools deal with accreditation issues raised by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement.

The school board subsequently approved using Schwartz & Shaw's services in the search for a new superintendent.

Why?

According to Norman, NCSBA insisted on the board of education's hiring an intermediary so the Raleigh-based association could keep its distance from Burke County.

Recalling the situation in May at the height of the controversy over the school board's attempt to terminate Burleson's contract, Norman said the atmosphere was "extremely volatile." People in the community were "nasty," "vengeful" and "hostile," she testified.

The school board in late-May — still acting on the assumption that Burleson's contract would end on June 30 — turned to Schwartz for advice on hiring a new superintendent. He recommended contracting with the school boards association. The cost was $8,500 (in addition to Burke County's annual $12,000 membership dues).

Then people in Burke County began "bombarding" (in Norman's words) the NCSBA office with e-mails, some of which evidently included threats.

The NCSBA staff member assigned to the superintendent search was afraid to come to Burke County, according to Norman, and Executive Director Ed Dunlap eventually refused to let the staff member come here.

Norman said she called Dunlap. "He was pretty closed-minded about helping Burke County," she said.

The two sides arranged a conference call involving Norman, Schwartz, Dunlap, Schafer and NCSBA President Dorothy Witherspoon.

"We basically begged" for NCSBA's help, Norman said.

After consulting with the association's executive committee, the NCSBA officials agreed to take on the job "with stipulations," Norman said. One was that Schwartz would be the intermediary and all communications would go through him or Norman. Another pre-condition was that the superintendent-candidate interviews would be confidential — no names involved — so Burke County residents couldn't harass them.

The association advertised the Burke County school superintendent's job, received applications and pre-screened the candidates.

Schafer arranged for interviews at the Renaissance Charlotte Suites Hotel about one mile from Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

Norman said the applicants traveled at their own expense, because the school board has no money to pay them (the county commissioners withheld 2009-10 funds for the school board's activities).

She also said school board members are traveling to Charlotte at their own expense.

She said one of the attorneys, Schwartz or Shaw, also will be at the meetings in Charlotte.

In addition to Tuesday evening's session, Schafer scheduled interviews for tonight and Thursday in Charlotte. All are closed to the public for discussion of personnel.

At least two school board members could not attend Tuesday's interview and aren't expected to be at tonight's or Thursday's. Both Sam Wilkinson and Buddy Armour had prior commitments.