The News & Observer: Article on Shanahan Law Group’s Representation of the Wake County Board of Education

BY T. KEUNG HUI – STAFF WRITER

RALEIGH — A Superior Court judge rejected today arguments that the Wake County school board violated the state’s Open Public Meetings Law by not moving recent meetings to accommodate large crowds opposed to changing the diversity policy.

In a court order, Judge Bill Pittman turned down the request for an injunction declaring that the school board had violated state law and should be required to take steps to move future meetings to a larger location. He also turned down a request to throw out two recent board votes that scrapped the use of socioeconomic diversity.

Pittman sided with board attorneys who said that the school district had taken reasonable accommodations to handle the crowds.
Attorneys for the school system had told Pittman that it would be impractical to move the meetings to larger locations. They said that school officials have taken reasonable steps to meet the public demand, such as expanding time for public comment, setting it up so that the meetings can be broadcast online and creating overflow rooms to watch the meeting on a video screen.

“The Open Meetings Law doesn’t require you to have all of the people all of the time in the meeting room,” said Ann Majestic, one of two attorneys representing the school board at today’s hearing.

Pittman told attorneys he plans to issue a ruling this afternoon because the next board meeting is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s uncertain whether he’ll rule only on the request for a preliminary injunction or also decide on the legality of the prior votes.
The school board is scheduled to give final approval Tuesday to ending references to socioeconomic diversity in the district’s student assignment policy.

The crowds at board meetings have sharply increased since December, escalating the often rancorous public opposition to the ruling majority. Starting with the March 23 meeting, the school system began requiring tickets for seats in the boardroom. School officials had cited concerns raised by the fire marshal for the change.

“It’s not about keeping people out,” Majestic said of the ticket policy. “It’s about keeping people safe.”

But the lawsuit contends that the board created the ticket policy and chose not to move any of the meetings to a larger venue to stifle public participation.

The suit notes how the school board turned down the last-minute March 23 offer from The News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting to pay for relocating the meeting to the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.

The crowd at the March 23 meeting overflowed into the hallway and outside the building. Angry students began chanting, leading to the arrests of three protesters, none of whom are current Wake students.

Wood said that the school board can take reasonable steps to decide which future meetings need to be moved to larger locations. He said the school board can do things like ask people to sign up online or send in RSVPs to get a feel for crowd count.