ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, November 19, 1996 TAG: 9611190110
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
With pointed suggestions that the Roanoke School Board is shirking its duties, City Council on Monday unexpectedly cut a key plank from the School Board's legislative requests for the 1997 General Assembly.
At the suggestion of Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt, council unanimously agreed to eliminate the School Board's plea to retain its power to overturn employee grievance panel findings.
City teachers have argued vehemently for more than a decade that they are singled out and treated differently from other public employees.
In 1994 and 1995, by substantial majorities, council rebuffed Wyatt's attempts to strip the same language from the School Board's legislative program.
Council's action came less than six weeks after the School Board, for the first time ever, overturned a grievance panel decision that favored a teacher. It is unclear if that action was connected to council's vote.
Monday, council members heaped criticism on School Board members for not showing up at a legislative policy meeting last week, knocked them for not showing up to comment on the legislative program at Monday's council meeting, and slammed them for starting the Nov. 12 School Board meeting late. A majority of board members were absent when the meeting was supposed to begin at 7 p.m.
Mayor David Bowers suggested that if School Board members continued not showing up at meetings, council would replace them with people who would.
"It disturbs me, if I may be heard on it, that when the legislative committee met, the two members who were to appear from the School Board did not appear," Bowers said. "I also understand that commencement of the School Board was delayed recently because there wasn't even a quorum present. So I have to say that if our School Board is going to be responsible partners with this council, then let them stand up and let them come to the meetings as they should, and let them be here to respond to these inquiries, and if they're not, then so be it."
"That's my greatest concern of what I'm hearing. Now if they're not to going to keep their meetings, then let us know. We'll get someone else to do it," Bowers added.
Councilman Jim Trout said he "absolutely agreed."
Delaying a meeting for lack of a quorum "is something you expect of the Boy Scouts, but not of the School Board," Trout said.
Although Councilman Jack Parrott said council shouldn't criticize board members for not showing up at last week's board meeting without looking into the circumstances, he added: "The thing that concerns me is if they don't show at this meeting, I think they should be criticized [for that]."
Bowers said at council's meeting Monday night that a phone call from School Board Chairwoman Marsha Ellison after the Monday afternoon meeting allayed his earlier criticism. Ellison called the mayor after learning of the council's comments from The Roanoke Times.
Ellison called the criticism "unwarranted."
"This School Board, it changes every year because we keep having new members appointed. But we do have a very good record of attendance, and three members have very good reasons why they couldn't be [at last week's School Board meeting]," she said in a telephone interview.
The Nov. 12 School Board meeting, which started about 15 minutes late, was "an anomaly," she said. Board member Melinda Payne, the fourth to show up at the meeting, was late because her mother was gravely ill. (Myrtle Jordan, Payne's mother, died Monday.) Member Marilyn Curtis was sick, and members John Saunders and Brian Wishneff were out of town on business, Ellison said.
The board rarely starts late; when it does, there are good reasons, she said. "That's why I'm rather surprised, when this board has a good record of attendance, that [council] would be given that inaccurate information."
Wishneff and Saunders had been assigned to attend the legislative policy committee meeting, but it was held when they were out of town. Ellison said Wishneff was not notified of that meeting.
Assistant Superintendent Richard Kelley represented the School Board at the council meeting Monday, Ellison said. However, Kelley left before the legislative program was discussed.
The School Board wants to keep the language against binding arbitration in employee grievance procedures, Ellison said, because "in states that do have it, millions of dollars are tied up in legal fees with school boards and employees going to court."
For nearly all Virginia public employees, findings of grievance panels are binding and cannot be overturned by a higher authority.
The exception involves teachers, librarians and counselors. School boards can overturn findings of their grievance panels for any reason.
The Virginia Supreme Court in 1978 ruled that school boards cannot give up that power without a change in the state constitution. The Virginia Education Association has been fighting for the constitutional amendment for more than a decade. School boards across the state, including Roanoke's, have been fighting the teacher association's efforts.
Gary Waldo, executive director of Commonwealth Uniserve, which represents city teachers, said he believes council's action was a sign of its displeasure with the School Board's Oct. 8 overturning of a grievance decision in favor of a teacher whom he declined to identify.
Two of the council members who voted to strip the language - Councilmen Nelson Harris and William White - have served on the School Board, Waldo noted.
"I think it's extraordinarily wonderful that the Roanoke City Council should care enough to say, 'No, no, no, we don't like that,''' Waldo said.
But Harris and Bowers said they were unaware of that action.
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