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December 19, 2005

Poof! And the school board member is gone

You may have heard about this incident on the news a few years ago ... a board member sprinkling voodoo powder outside the office of a district administrator. Maybe sprinkling voodoo powder is not so common, but the fact that the elected board member was summarily removed from office by an unelected superintendent as a result and took the district to court raises the larger issue of school board member removal. NSBA 's federal policy and guidance manager Karla Schultz wrote about the lawsuit and matters surrounding board removal in the most recent edition of the Education Law Reporter.

Particularly intriguing are the details of the incident: "After an especially contentious January 2002 school board meeting over the district's diversity policy, board member [Nancy] Ortiz claimed that fellow board member Amy Velez went to the office of the acting superintendent, sprinkled a 'suspicious, pink, powder-like substance' in front of the door, and left a plastic bag which contained more of the powder." Nastiness ensued with a lawsuit about who had the power to do what and why. Read the legal details here.

Posted December 19, 2005 3:18 PM

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