After pleas for transparency to the Lumpkin County School Board at its February meeting and a month-long fight, Adam Scott was finally allowed to watch the alleged controversial lecture his child and others received in a Lumpkin County Middle School Georgia History class back in January.
However, at the conclusion of the viewing, Scott still felt the issue was far from resolved.
“I listened to it four times and I cannot make out what he’s saying,” Scott said of the recording. “So after hearing it, I believe 100 percent everything my child told me had to be true. And there’s no way to discredit what they said.”
At the February Board of Education meeting, Scott spoke on his concerns about the content of the lecture, particularly comments made about former president Donald Trump and the second amendment, and argued that he should be able to hear the lecture for himself in accordance to FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). After filing requests for the recordings to be released both by way of FERPA and an Open Records request, both were denied. It was then that Scott retained an attorney who then filed a request which Scott called “very similar” to the requests he sent days earlier.
Following the request from the attorney, Scott was granted an appointment to view the video at the Central Office.
“Our attorney informed us last Thursday that the right legal argument and the right legal request had been made by an attorney representing Mr. Scott which allowed us to show him the video of the class lecture,” Superintendent Dr. Rob Brown told The Nugget.
After watching the tape, Scott recounted the viewing to The Nugget.
“When we started watching the video, roll call is being conducted,” Scott said. “You hear crystal clear the students’ names, you hear the teacher and then he starts out and says ‘I do want to break one of my rules. I never talk about politics or beliefs,’ then it goes inaudible for a little bit, five or 10 seconds. You can tell he’s talking. And then he said ‘In 2016 I voted for Donald Trump for president. In 2020 I voted for Joe Biden. The reason is the mockery that Donald J. Trump has brought to the presidency.”'
Scott said it was hard to make out every word of the discussion but the teacher criticized everything from the Republican Party to Fox News to conspiracy theories surrounding the January 6 Capitol riot to Trump’s accusations that the election was rigged.
“Then he says ‘We’re the laughing stock of the world,’ then he says ‘There has only been one other time that a federal building has been breached and that was the War of 1812,’ [then it was] inaudible. Then he comes on and says ‘I’m ashamed of the Republican Party,’” recalled Scott.
Scott said the political talk lasted six minutes and 38 seconds and afterward the audio issues cleared up.
AUDIO ARGUMENT
When talking with The Nugget, Brown confirmed the broad topics of discussion.
“Yes, the lecture included comments about President Trump, the Capitol breach, and the Republican Party,” he said. “However, the lecture did not include several statements which were alleged to have been made in the public comments at the board meeting.”
Due to the moments of audio that he called “inaudible,” Scott isn’t convinced.
“It’s very concerning because some of it is so clear and then after that point, it’s clear,” he said. “At the six minute 38 seconds, every time that we would stop it, I had no problem understanding what he was saying. I did not hear any inaudible times past that point.”
When asked about the audio inconsistencies, Brown said “None of the audio is crystal clear, but roughly 95% of the audio can be heard and understood. There were a handful of words which were inaudible.”
Scott hopes that other parents will request to hear the audio, in hopes that they can piece together the parts of the lecture that are inaudible.
For that to happen, Brown said that any parent that wishes to view the footage would need to “make the right legal request.”
LEGALITIES
“This video is an educational record of all students in the class,” Brown said. “If other parents want to view the video, they will need to go through the same process that Mr. Scott went through to view the video. Based on guidance from our attorney, anyone who did not have a child in class will not be allowed to view the video.”
This would in turn rule out John Dowdy, who also spoke at the February meeting, but did not have a child in the class where the lecture was given. Dowdy, who plans to retain the same lawyer as Scott in hopes of seeing the tape, questions why more litigation is needed if the argument that parents have the right to see the tape has already been made.
“Why are parents in this county having to hire lawyers to ask the school board to be transparent?” Dowdy said. “...Maybe mom and dad’s not financially able to hire a lawyer. How do they fight for that child under this system?”
Brown clarified that he doesn’t believe hiring a lawyer is necessarily required.
“No, I don't believe hiring an attorney is necessary,” he said. “However, we will continue to rely on our attorney's advice on who can and cannot view the video. If a parent makes the right legal request, they wouldn't need an attorney.”
Scott believes he made the same arguments his attorney made both at the public meeting and in an official request that was denied.
“I feel like the school has tried to change the law and that’s why I want a clarification of [whether this] was done under FERPA,” he said. “If so, why did it take me getting an attorney to get this released because...I quoted FERPA law and told the board with the Superintendent sitting at the head of the table, ‘You have to release this video to me, you have to let me hear it and see it.’ So if it was done under FERPA, then Rob Brown put out the wrong information, whether the attorney gave him wrong information or whether he was shooting from the hip.”
Brown says the school system is taking the necessary steps to avoid legal trouble while also giving parents an accurate account of what happened.
“Since this incident occurred, it has been our desire to take appropriate steps which protect the privacy of students in the class, keep the school system out of legal trouble, and yet give parents an accurate representation of what was actually said in the class,” he said. “Just because someone says that the teacher said something, doesn't mean it was actually said by the teacher.”
POLITICAL TALK
As for potential discipline for the alleged controversial lecture, Brown said “this is a personnel matter which was handled swiftly and appropriately.”
Scott says it’s not about seeking discipline for the teacher.
“Whatever y’all want to do,” he said. “My issue is the lack of transparency in the school and fighting so hard to keep me from hearing what they put out to my child.”
When speaking about the lecture at the February meeting, Scott mentioned an instance where a teacher ripped up a student’s self-portrait “all the while belittling the child in front of his classmates” because the student’s artwork included a “Make America Great Again” banner. Scott clarified that the incident did not involve the history teacher whose lecture is in question, but was rather in a different classroom at a different school.
Scott says the problem is not about which side the alleged middle school teacher’s political statements fell on, but rather that lectures should remain within the curriculum.
“It’s not a Republican thing, it’s not a Democrat thing,” he said. “Let’s teach the curriculum that’s approved by the educational process, whatever that may be, but when we get off on something, if he gets up there and just starts going off about how great Donald Trump is and how awful Joe Biden is, well, I realize in a day from that speech, Joe Biden is going to be the president so I don’t want to hear him being bad-mouthed either. I try to teach my children you respect that office and it’s the highest office in that land and we have to support no matter who our president is. That’s what I teach to my children. Whether I agree with policies or not, he’s still the leader of the free world and we have to back him.”
The Board of Education held a called meeting on Monday, March 1, but the issue did not come up in public portion of the meeting.
“This is not a topic of discussion in our public meeting today,” Brown told The Nugget before the meeting. “However, we will meet in Executive Session to discuss legal issues.”
The Board of Education will have its regular monthly meeting on Monday, March 8 with a work session beginning at 5:30 p.m. and the regular meeting beginning at 7 p.m.
Scott said he will be there.
“I have signed up to speak at the next board meeting, which is March 8th, to get clarification from the board,” he said. “I’m going to submit my Open Records request, my denial from the school, my attorney’s open records request and then my bill for my attorney, I’m going to give it to the board chairman because I feel like the school’s responsible for that bill because I’ve requested it under FERPA and I’ve requested it under Open Records, so why now is it being released?”