SROs become hot-button topic
Debra "Hank" Dinschel
Robbinsville – There was one universal consensus across the room at Tuesday’s Graham County Board of Education meeting: students are the top priority for all involved.
But that seemed to be the only conclusion everyone could agree on, as the meeting crumbled into more of a public airing of grievances between school personnel and elected officials.
Unilateral support for board chair Rodney Nelson was a recurring theme of the 3-hour session, with members of the general public joining central-office personnel in voicing their backing for the tenured Nelson. The angst and uprising of support came in the wake of board member Debra “Hank” Dinschel’s bold proclamation during the Jan. 2 meeting that she was going to ask for a vote to remove Nelson as chair. Dinschel cited a perceived lack of respect from Nelson as her reasoning for the planned proposal.
However, a vote by the board was never pitched Tuesday. Assistant superintendent Robert Moody and Nelson’s wife Carolyn were among those who discussed the matter by signing up for public comment.
“Obviously, children have a special place in God’s heart,” Moody elaborated. “It’s the main reason I became an educator: to help that process and to protect them while I do it. But at the last board meeting, it got so contentious that we had to ask students to leave – the very ones that we’re sworn to help at all costs.”
While addressing Nelson at the January meeting, Dinschel said she was lied to by Nelson regarding a request from Dinschel to be placed on the agenda of Jan. 3, 2023’s meeting. Dinschel was not on the agenda and when she openly questioned her absence at the January 2023 meeting, Dinschel said Nelson raised his voice at her and ignored her discussion.
Nelson apologized to Dinschel at last month’s meeting, stating he did not purposefully lie to Dinschel.
“Abraham Lincoln quoted Mark 3 (Verse 25) while the country was amid the Civil War, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand,’” Moody paraphrased. “If a school is fighting against itself – students versus an agenda – that school will not stand.”
Carolyn Nelson wondered aloud why the focus of meetings has seemingly transitioned from making the students a priority to correct procedures and policies being followed by the board.
“If I heard Rodney say it once, I heard him say it 100 times while he taught for 39 years, ‘It’s all about the kids,’” Carolyn said.
SROs
Rumors began circulating late-Monday that the Graham County Sheriff’s Office was going to be at Tuesday’s meeting to discuss taking over responsibility for providing the district’s three school resource officers.
Graham County Sheriff Brad Hoxit, chief deputy Cody George and Capt. Travis Brooks were all present for the meeting, with Hoxit clearing up some of the “misconceptions” surrounding the proposal.
Hoxit reminded those on-hand that one of the ideas he campaigned on while pursuing the office was increasing the presence of deputies at the schools.
“We are not asking for any money from the county,” Hoxit explained. “If it (the position of SRO) is transferred to us under our jurisdiction, the funds (for salary) will still come from the school board’s budget.
“We’re not looking to change any of the SROs. They’re there (at the schools) and want to be there.”
Hoxit added that with the current arrangement, Graham County’s school resource officers have no jurisdiction off-campus.
George mapped out a plan on what the office had in mind, with the need for a Memorandum of Understanding and streamlined communication emerging as the central topic. The main point of contention surrounded a recent incident, in which school officials learned of a concerning search performed on one of the district’s monitored computers. Revealed amid a discussion about the matter was a timeline that showed school officials learned of the electronic search being performed late on a Friday afternoon. The student was off-campus and would not be returning until the following Monday.
Officials contacted the sheriff’s office about the matter early that same Monday, before the student returned to a school campus.
Moody also serves as Graham County Schools’ safety coordinator and is currently over the school resource officers. While Dinschel questioned the delay in contacting the sheriff’s office, Moody interrupted and said the district conducted its own investigation and the student involved was expelled.
School board member Pam Knott later praised Moody for the work he has done as the system’s safety coordinator, but alluded to some underlying “sown discord” that seemed to bubble over.
“I don’t have a personal grudge against the sheriff’s office,” Moody said, while apologizing for his interjection. “This ‘discord’ is not with me; I always keep my doors open with them (the sheriff’s office). They know that.”
No action was taken by the board; instead, the debate concluded with a plan to hold a open discussion at 5 p.m. Thursday, March 21, inside the Robbinsville High School Auditorium, to gauge opinions about the matter. The board voted 3-1 to hold the forum, with Dinschel providing the opposing nod.
The meeting can be viewed in its entirety for free at grahamstar.com.
Next week: Retirements announced, plus the board votes on temporary bleachers at Big Oaks Stadium.