School Board Meetings

 My last assignment as a cop was as a School Resource Officer and during the last six years of that assignment, I was the school-house cop who looked over the school board.  It was quite an education in small-ball politics.  The school board would do something to aggravate the parents, and the parents would show up at the meetings and raise hell.

Sometimes the Superintendent would ask me if I thought they needed additional security at some of the meetings.  I'd always tell him NO, that the parents had an absolute right to raise hell, and if the Board would quit dong stupid things, the parents would quit coming to the meetings.

Occasionally, the Superintendent would go over my head and call my supervisor, (a loathsome, gutless individual) and I'd have a couple of hapless deputies at the meetings, wasting time, energy, and resources.

I see that the Sheriff in Loudoun county, Virginia has had the same problems.

Emails also show the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office (LCSO) rejecting what it said were "extraordinary" security requests – including an explosive sweep and undercover presence – by the superintendent for future school board meetings. The documents were initially obtained via public records request from Fight for Schools PAC, which has been fighting the school district's equity initiatives.

You can read about it all at the link, but the school board wanted  pre-meeting explosive sweeps and plain-clothes cops at the meetings.  Utter foolishness, and the Sheriff, predictably, said NO.

The very idea that elected officials, especially at the level of a county school board, should be insulated from their constituents by an overbearing police presence is and insult to democracy.  A school board member is a servant of the people, not an overlord.  If they feel that they need police protection, then it's time to resign.

Let's Go, Brandon.