The Davis Elementary School Parent Teacher Association won't be allowed to speak to the Greenwood School Board prior to a Feb. 23 hearing requested by Davis' principal.
Dr. Leslie Daniels, superintendent, wrote the PTA last week to say the organization would be denied a place on the School Board's Feb. 15 agenda.
"I am upset, but we are going to keep trying and see if we can get him to change his mind," the PTA's president, Annette Polk, said after receiving the letter Friday.
However the School Board's attorney, Richard Oakes, said Daniels is legally restrained from letting the PTA have its say before the board prior to the hearing for the principal, Dr. Nannette Christmas-Reed.
The PTA has worked on a statement and set of questions for the board, all dealing with the employment status of Christmas-Reed. In January, she learned her contract with the School District would not be renewed. Tardiness and insubordination were among the reasons listed.
Christmas-Reed said Wednesday she assumed when she asked for the hearing that it would be open.
Whether it is open or closed is her decision, Oakes said. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. in the district's central office on Howard Street.
Daniels, in his letter to the PTA, wrote, "The matter you wish to discuss is a personnel matter and is being handled in accordance with the Mississippi law. Dr. Christmas-Reed is being represented by counsel. It is not appropriate to discuss this matter at this time."
Oakes said, "I am the one who told Dr. Daniels it would not be proper for them to address the board at this time.
"The proper thing for them to do is to contact Dr. Christmas-Reed's attorney and become part of her case and let them testify at the hearing." Oakes declined to name the attorney.
Oakes said not even Daniels has discussed the case with the School Board, and he will not do so before the hearing. "Because of statutes and case law, you can't do it," Oakes said.
He said the proceeding will be conducted by a hearing officer, attorney David Holly, who "will listen to all of the evidence and make sure there is a transcript prepared in front of a court reporter."
The School Board will not be at the hearing, Oakes said.
Instead, it will receive the transcript and then "determine whether or not the superintendent's recommendation for non-renewal will be upheld."
Board members, said Oakes, "are not supposed to have any knowledge of any of the facts until such time as they read the transcript."
