Board of Education sets tribunal board

The Aiken County Board of Education has appointed four retired school district administrators to serve on a tribunal and hear disciplinary appeals.

A fifth appointee, Delores Singley, is retired from the Department of Juvenile Justice. The school district retirees are Joe Padget, Melanie Hutto, Clarence Jackson and Gene Robbins. The tribunal members will rotate on three-person teams.

When they begin work, they'll take over the appeals process from the Area Councils in each of the five attendance areas. They'll conduct hearings in each area and are expected to work about 30 hours each month.

"They know about student discipline, interventions, due process," said Deputy Superintendent David Caver. "We went into this open-ended and advertised for a couple of weeks. We felt it was important that folks understood due process and understood the interventions that principals can use."

Padget most recently was a principal at Aiken High School when he retired. Jackson served as principal at Paul Knox Middle School and North Augusta High. Robbins also was a Paul Knox principal and for several years worked with alternative programs.

A former Area 3 assistant superintendent and Leavelle McCampbell Middle School principal, Hutto continues to substitute in schools. Singley taught for DJJ and was a probation officer, Caver said.

School Board attorney Bill Burkhalter will provide training for the tribunal members. He'll go over the school district code of conduct and the board's philosophy on keeping kids in school if reasonably possible.

"Part of the training will focus on procedures and looking at an efficient and fair way of approaching hearings," he said, "with the primary view to get the fact as accurately as they can."

Previously Area Councils have served as hearing officers for student appeals at the school and area levels. The School Board will continue to be the final appeals option when parents choose to seek it.

Hutto said she felt the tribunal was a program in which she wanted to get on the ground floor. From the time she became an administrator as a Kennedy Middle School assistant principal in 1978, she participated in hundreds of disciplinary appeals.

"I appreciate where the board members are coming from about students being treated the same," Hutto said. "I want us to do it right and make everybody around the county know that it's being done fairly."

Burkhalter plans to provide practice scenarios for the tribunal members prior to the hearings.

"I'll try to sit in with each group," he said, "and offer some tips and clarifications so everyone is one the same page."

A good software package would ensure good record-keeping, so that tribunal members can refer to their past decisions as needed, Hutto said. In some situations, seemingly similar appeals may have different outcomes - such as a student with no prior offenses committing a relatively minor violation. If another student commits the same violation, but has extensive disciplinary problems, the resolution of that hearing could be different, Hutto said.

"The public doesn't quite understand that," she said. "Our job is to help them understand what we're doing. We're in the education business, but sometimes it's difficult if children won't follow the rules."

Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.