Something stinks on the new WCSB.

Something stinks to high heaven with this Superintendent search process. This is long, and I use the word "corruption". You'll see why.

I’ll try to keep this as easy to follow as possible but encourage everyone to watch the entire search firm discussion in this YouTube video, which starts at 1:00:42.

Here’s what happened when the agenda item came up -

A board member (D2 Randy Allen) hit their “motion” button and another board member (D6 Kimberly Calcote) hit “second” immediately before any words were spoken.

Robert’s Rules of orders call for the motion to be made out loud, so another member can then second it and verify that there’s at least two people interested in having the discussion. This saves everyone from needlessly discussing items that don’t at least have two people’s support. This didn’t happen. Somehow Kimberly Calcote immediately seconded a silent motion without knowing what the motion even was. Curious.

New Board chair - and the “NEW” is important here for later as the Chair vote was just taken last night at the beginning of the meeting with D9 Claire Reeves receiving the nod - recognizes Randy Allen who made a motion and gave him the floor to say what it was.

Randy makes a motion to hire Zeal Education Group as the search firm. Claire begins discussion immediately.

Let’s pause here.

There was no vote on if a national search should be conducted or not, despite all the debate around doing so. They went straight to appointing a firm, and without following Robert’s Rules of Order on the vote….mark it as the first time thinking “We’re going to miss Josh Brown” who at least knew how to properly run a meeting.

Here’s where it gets shady.

Mind you, Kimberly Calcote still hasn’t been called on to ask what she was seconding. You don't "second" a motion without hearing what it is first. Please remember it's illegal for Board members to discuss plans or public matters ahead of time unless in an open forum, per Tennessee's Sunshine Law (TOMA). This includes emails, phone calls, and text messages.

Instead Claire calls on D10 Jennifer Konyn, who asks a great question about every Board member needing to disclose any personal, professional or financial connections with any of the 3 firms being considered. You need to watch all of this discussion as most Board members take kindly to this request and agree that’s an important thing to know, even thanking her for asking.

And then things went completely off the rails: You can watch this at 1:03:03 when Claire Reeves tries to explain how she knows about Zeal. I’m lightly paraphrasing but please watch it for yourself:

“Mr. Melendez from Zeal sent the proposal proactively to Jay Galbreath. Mr. Galbreath knew he was rolling off the Board so he sent it to me, at which point I sent it to Ms. Farmer (CFO) and Mr. Jackson (attorney).

“They [Farmer and Jackson] both advised we did not need an RFQ.” (This is correct for advisory services, for those questioning it.)

WHAT. Why did an out of state search firm send a proposal to a particular Board member? When was this sent? Why Jay Galbreath? He wasn’t Chair, and when Jason Golden announced his resignation on June 23rd, Jay wasn’t in a race to retain his seat and was clearly leaving the School Board. The Zeal proposal was dated June 29th, just 6 days later from the announcement.

And why did Jay, who was still on the Board, forward their proposal to Claire? Claire wasn’t the Board Chair until a vote was taken last night. She wasn’t the only Board member who’d be staying on in August after the election. Jay has been on the Board for TWELVE YEARS. Claire knew to forward it to Farmer and Jackson but he didn’t?

Then at 1:06:44, I need you to picture half of us in the room basically falling on the floor:

Claire said she went to Mr. Melendez from Zeal - who had already submitted an unsolicited proposal to the School Board via Jay Gablreath for a professional services contract - to name a competitor of his firm so she could go find someone else to bid on the work. Pause for deep breaths for anyone who works in procurement, finance, or legal.

“He [Melendez] proposed HYA, a firm he used to work for…so I did a search….and [all caps are mine] I KNEW THEY WOULD BE ON THE HIGHER END and the goal was to have a lower priced option, a middle priced option which was Zeal, and a higher priced option.”

EXCUSE ME, M’AM. When I tell you my jaw was on the floor, and at the same time I heard an audible gasp nearby from someone I don’t know.

Lots and lots of discussion takes place, and it’s worth the watch to see how your taxpayer funds got awarded. Dennis Driggers makes an extremely good case (not a typo for those who have watched him in the past) for using TSBA if we’re going to do a search…which remember, hasn’t been voted on. We just went straight to voting on if we’re using Zeal or not.

Quite a few Board members made significant points about Zeal’s cost will actually greatly exceed their quoted price because travel isn’t included, and none of them live in state so this will add up quickly and could be quite significant. So anyone quoting “a teeny tiny fraction of our budget” has no idea what they’re talking about in the end with final costs.

Zeal has never placed a Superintendent in Tennessee, which matters when it comes to education law and qualifications. Other counties like Wilson, Rutherford, and Knox haven’t had to use outside search firms to get qualified candidates from across the country.

All 3 proposed search entities, including TSBA, would be formally soliciting community input and utilizing surveys, which was brought up multiple times as being critically important, so that “pro” for Zeal is moot.

Zeal Education Group employs a roster of 100 consultants, according to their website. Jennifer Konyn brought up significant concerns with the 2 named consultants that are assigned to the WCS search according to their proposal (1:35:37).

And not for nothing, the number of Board members who said they contacted these vendors directly on their own for information was flabbergasting. It’s not an official RFP so that’s not prohibited, but still highly unusual and the public has no transparency around any of the conversations that took place. Concerning? Probably.

Zeal’s proposal included references for searches in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, and South Carolina - none of which are even half the size of the WCS population, most of which are small rural districts by Zeal’s own description.

D4 Board member Traci Anderson called the South Carolina reference and told us all about that situation, which was a failing school district and couldn’t be more different than our situation here in Williamson County. (01:21:21).

The Board ultimately voted on the motion to select Zeal by a vote of 9-4, with the 4 No’s being a wild mix of Board members: Jennifer Konyn, Dennis Driggers, Margie (Johnson) Padgett, Melissa Wyatt.

Fiscal transparency and Roberts Rules be damned.

Then - THEN! - we all wake up to see an op-ed by…drumroll please….none other than now-former Board Member Jay Galbreath in the Williamson Herald about why it’s so important that a national search be conducted.

WHAT A COINCIDENCE. Did someone recently move into consulting with any education consulting firms? Just wondering.

We could spend time debunking all of his op-ed points but frankly, it’s not worth your time.

What would have been a healthy and necessary discussion for our community was debating the merits of if a costly and time-consuming search was actually necessary or not. It was clear that some of the Board members wanted that discussion, instead of having to stay on the topic of Zeal or no Zeal.

Back way up in the video to 28:16 where you’ll hear the President of the Williamson County Education Association, which is the local teachers union representing local educators, staff, and admin, urging the Board to take institutional knowledge into consideration and how critical that is for our district, and listen to the educators on this matter. It's their boss. They know what they need to be successful to meet strategic and operational goals.

This was the most horribly run process I’ve ever seen in 12+ years of watching too many School Board meetings to count. Claire Reeves is off to a rocky start as Board Chair, and needs to quickly do a deep dive on Rules of Order for running meetings.

But in the end they got what they wanted, which is an award of $50,000+ and an unlimited travel budget funded by Williamson County taxpayers to the Delaware-based Zeal Education Group.

Congrats to everyone involved, including those behind the scenes.

[Cue the predictable meltdowns. We said what we said and public records requests will either be telling or mysteriously quiet.]