Last week, The County Record presented the first in a two-part series about Blountstown High School Principal Duane Barber being terminated by Superintendent Tommy McClellan. Barber shared a letter he sent to McClellan describing several situations in which he followed school board policy on code of conduct and discipline, but had his decisions overturned.
Examples included drugs being found in a student’s vehicle, instances where students repeatedly violated rules, but were allowed to march at graduation, and out-of-county students with low FCAT scores being allowed to re-enroll at BHS, thus pulling the school’s grade down.
This week, we asked school board members to respond since they were, in some cases, presented with these situations and had to cast deciding votes on whether to follow the policies they put in place. Two of the five board members chose to respond - Chairwoman Kelly King (district 2) and district 5 representative Danny Hassig. Those who did not respond are Danny Ryals (district 1), Tim Smith (district 3), and Ken Speights (district 4). Check out our print edition for what they had to say on the matter.
