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  Citizens Seeking Excellence in Education hold school board candidate forum web posted October 21, 2008 EDGEFIELD – The Edgefield County Citizens Seeking Excellence in Education (SEE) held a candidate forum Monday night with school board candidates seeking election in November. The forum was held at the Conference Room at the National Wild Turkey Federation and four of the six candidates involved in challenged races were able to attend. The event was well attended with at least thirty seated around the room listening as the candidates told about themselves and then the audience asked questions in a candid format. Attending the forum were School Board District 4 incumbent Brad Covar and his challenger newcomer B. David Franklin as well as School Board Chairwoman Sallie Cooks from District 6 challenged by former board member Kenneth Collier. District 7 board member Scott Chitty had a previous engagement and candidate Chris Hoffmann was attending a previously scheduled EMS class as a member of the Merriwether Volunteer Fire Department.  The first candidate
to speak was Brad Covar, who has served four terms
and is a former board chairman, saying he and his wife both graduated
from Edgefield County Schools and his wife currently teaches at W. E.
Parker. Their three children, two presently at Strom Thurmond and one
now at The University of South Carolina, are also products of Edgefield
County District Schools. Mr. Covar pointed out that the school district is “facing a crisis” due to the current budget cuts being considered by the state legislature. “I don’t know any other way to look at it,” Cover said. “We’ve already had one budget cut and we know we have another one coming, and possibly a third, and it could amount to $2 million overall in one year.” Mr. Covar said there were going to have to be cuts locally and some may be unpopular, but the board will come together and do what is best for the schools.  David Franklin, also
running for the District 4 seat, said he is a
resident of Mt. Vintage and has only been in the area for six to seven
years. He said he formerly served on the Fox Creek Charter High School
Board and is currently a teacher in Augusta, Georgia, for the Richmond
County School System teaching economics and AP government. Franklin
said he was an “Air Force brat” that “grew up in Germany, England, and
the (Washington) D.C. area.” His background is in law enforcement as a
gang administrator in San Diego, California. He said his reason for
running was, “because I care.”It was then Franklin nearly broke down into tears and could not continue. He motioned to Sallie Cooks sitting to his immediate left who spoke up saying Mr. Franklin’s nephew had been in a car crash earlier and was in the hospital. “He broke his spine,” Franklin interjected tearfully. After hesitating for several minutes Franklin continued saying he really cared about the students in all the schools and had “other things” he wished to speak on but deferred to the next candidate.  Next to speak was
current school board chairwoman Sallie Cooks who
stated she has served two terms and is seeking a third to continue to
serve District 6. Cooks said oncve she was elected to the School Board
she returned to school herself and is currently working on a Doctorate.
“I want to get my hands in there,” dealing with the education of the
children. She felt her two terms on the board and her record spoke for
itself and that she is one who basis her decisions on the board for the
best interest of the children. Mrs. Cooks spoke of the many workshops and conferences she has attended as a school board member to enhance her ability as a member of the board. Cooks said that one thing people need to remember is that she is just one vote on the board and “you can have a lot of great ideas,” but if it is not approved there was not much a single member could do. She did refer to several handouts she presented that explained the achievements of the school district schools and her reasoning for the choice that was made for School Superintendent, Mary Crenshaw.  Former school board
member Kenneth Collier, Mrs. Cooks’ challenger,
spoke next and stated he felt like Rocky. “It seems like every election
Mrs. Cooks and I are running against each other.” Mrs. Cooks narrowly
defeated Mr. Collier by a handful of votes both times. Mr. Collier said
he and his wife too were Edgefield County natives and products of the
public education system and his children are currently enrolled in
local schools. He said his wife is currently employed as a bookkeeper
at Merriwether Middle School.Collier jumped right into the main thrust of his positions saying that school board members need to take their positions seriously and the things they do and the votes they cast should be ethical. Mr. Collier pointed to board member Brad Covar and said that they both, as school board members knew that when a vote came up that involved a family member you have to abstain from the vote for ethical reasons. Another issue Mr. Collier raised was the current budget crisis and said he felt the school board should be among the first to face the cuts. “When I first ran and became a school board member, I didn’t know we got paid,” Collier said. The school board, in his opinion, should be willing to serve unconditionally regardless of pay. “It’s not about the money,” he said adding that he took the money paid from being on the school board to set up a scholarship fund. Above that, he said school board members are forced to attend more “called meetings” by the school board leadership in the last few years than he has ever seen. In addition to being one of the highest paid school boards in the state, the called meetings cost taxpayers additional $100 in taxpayer funds. “I think we can do better than that. I know there are times you have to call a meeting, but it should be only when it is required and can’t be addressed at a regular meeting.” The forum then moved to questions from voters and an unidentified woman spoke up on the subject of school board members pay asking what the board members earned. Sallie Cooks spoke up and said it was not that much and Brad Covar spoke up saying board members were paid $400 a month plus an additional $50 for the scheduled meetings plus an additional $100 for special called meetings. Covar said he would not be apposed to reducing the amount paid for board members attending meetings. Mr. Collier and Mr. Franklin agreed. Mr. Collier spoke up saying the Chair and the Treasurer were paid an additional $25 per meeting. Mrs. Cooks said she was unaware of the extra pay she and board member James Bibbs receives. Another question posed was on the travel expenses of board members attending various conferences and training sessions mention by Mrs. Cooks and could that expense be curtailed. Mrs. Cooks answered that she felt board members should attend such opportunities to expand their knowledge to be effective school board members and that she was unwilling to cut that aspect from the budget. Brad Covar spoke up saying that though some conferences were in fact beneficial to new board members, he did not see the need to attend them after a period of time and that it was something the board should curtail in an effort to reduce spending. “I haven’t attended one in over five years,” Covar said. Mr. Collier said when he served he attended a few and that he and former board member Leslie Cullpepper would share a room and ride together to reduce the cost to taxpayers. “You should have seen the look on some of the board members when we said we were going to share a room,” Collier said. Sharing not only the room but also riding together kept the district from paying two people going to the same location money in mileage. Another pointed question was posed to chairwoman Sallie Cooks as to how she could explain why board treasurer James Bibbs, who has racked up more conferences than any board member, was allowed to not only attend so many, some out of state, and upgraded his room to a “king suite” plus hundreds of dollars in mileage driving to other states and the school district was left to pick up the tab. Board members Scott Chitty and Mary Alice Jackson rounded out those spending the most money for travels in the reports. Mrs. Cooks said that after that was brought to her attention it has no t happened since. However, Mr. Bibbs has not been made to repay the increase in costs he incurred for his upgrades in boarding. School Board member Brad Covar took issue with that to an extent saying that he proposed that a set amount be allocated to each board member for attending conferences and that suggestion was shot down by the majority. Covar said he also pushed to have anything above the normal expenditures by a board member for travel having to be signed off on by the chair and was defeated on that measure as well by the majority. Mrs. Cooks balked at the idea. Kenneth Collier said he did not see the need to attend out of town conferences as the information and classes could be made available over the internet. “Why go there?” he said. In addition he felt that Mr. Courtney driving around every two weeks delivering the board members packets for the meetings was also a waste of time, money, and fuel. “Why can’t the packet just be e-mailed to board members?” That would save paying a high paid district employee for the time involved and the fuel that could be better used towards benefiting the students. Mr. Franklin agreed saying if elected he too would fight to curtail spending by school board members on travel. The meeting continued but due to deadlines the rest of the meeting could not be attended. Some of the issues important to residents are the new school board district lines redrawn after the last election and the fact the school board race is a non-partisan ballot. Voters who vote a “straight ticket” (Democrat of Republican) will not vote in the school board race. A voter must scroll through the ballot and cast a vote individually in the race. A map of the school board districts can be found here (PDF. File) The file is large enough to zoom into street level locations so voters can know which race they are voting in. Two areas in specific are most affected - the Town of Edgefield, which has been divided into four districts, and Merriwether, which has been dissected into three districts. Those opposing the new districts, redrawn in 2005, said the school board majority was diluting political subdivisions (Edgefield and Merriwether) to secure the election of the majority board members currently holding seats, Sallie Cooks, James Bibbs, Viola Jackson, and Mary Alice Jackson. ©
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