A few Ruleville Central High School alumni are still not happy about the Sunflower County Consolidated School District’s decision to rename their beloved alma mater, which is why they have retained the services of Attorney Alsee McDaniel to defend their cause.
At the SCCSD’s board of trustee’s April 9 meeting, McDaniel told the members that he was there to mainly get clarification of their policy, which in his opinion only allowed them to rename portions of a school, such as buildings and facilities and not the school itself.
Prior to making that statement, McDaniel, Board President Edward Thomas and superintendent Miskia Davis were handed an envelope by Board Attorney Carlos Palmer when he entered the room, and McDaniel indicated that the enclosed document addressed the concerns that he had raised at a their last meeting concerning the school board’s policy.
The policy in question, which is the SCCSD’s policy code FB-The naming of school facilities, states in part, “It shall be the policy of the Sunflower County Consolidated School District to name school facilities…” It further states that they will, …consider requests from school and community groups in the naming of a portion of a building, a single building on a campus with multiple buildings, or a specific area of a school campus.”
However, seemingly in contrast to the above statement, is a sentence in the policy that says, “If any person for which a school is named...” The policy posting was last reviewed on October 9, 2018 and adopted revised on November 15, 2018, which was following a September meeting when the name change was mentioned.
McDaniel had reportedly appeared before the board at their March meeting, voiced his client’s complaints and requested clarification on the trustee’s decision since the trustees had declared in a letter submitted to him by Palmer that their decision to rename the school in honor of former superintendent Thomas Edwards Sr. was final.
At the heart of McDaniel’s contention is a discrepancy over the meaning of the word facility. McDaniel said the board was operating as if it had the authority to name/rename a facility or a school; however, he maintains that is not his interpretation of the policy. “And I have read the policy several times,” he said.
Trustee Debra Johnson said, “It's a matter of semantics Attorney McDaniel, it's a matter of semantics and how you define the word facility. Facility can mean anything, it can mean a field, a building, the yard, the sidewalk, whatever,” she said.
McDaniel said, “I respectfully disagree.” Johnson added, “Well, is a school building not a school facility? We’ll be in bad shape if it's not,” she said.
Palmer added, “The policy is clear, it also references the term school facility as well as school in that policy.” He said this was not the first time the board has named a school after a person and he interposed that Gentry High was named after a person.
Palmer maintained that the policy does not define what a school is or what a facility is, but both terms are mentioned in the wording.
Also in play was a request from the alumni for the board to reverse their decision to rename the school. Palmer mentioned a “citation” and said, “If your client wanted to have this board consider this information, you should have presented that information to the board well before the board made its decision on that particular matter.”
Palmer said he did not know what caused them to delay. “This particular issue was well publicized throughout Sunflower County, petitions circulated as to whether it should be named this, whether it should be named that,” he said.
Thomas said in a recent phone interview that the members did revisit the issue, but determined not to reverse their original decision and are forging ahead with the renaming process.
Tom Allen, a 1967 Ruleville native, who now resides in the Jackson area, had said earlier that he presented a petition containing 600 names of former graduates of the school who stand with him and want the school board members to reconsider the determination to rename the school and reverse their pronouncement.
Allen also asserted that he had told President Thomas about the 600-signature petition and that Thomas had mentioned that he too had petitions with 300 names on it of people who were for the school’s name change. “Why would 300 overrule 600?” Allen asked.
Allen also questioned why none of the people Thomas claimed signed his petition ever show up at the meetings to argue for renaming the school. He said he feels as though Thomas is the driving force for the name change. “Edward Thomas seems to be carrying the water for the other side,” he said.
After last week’s meeting Thomas reaffirmed that the members were proceeding with their original intent to rename the school and stated that he has not seen a strong representation of the people that Allen claims to have signatures from, but supporters of the name change have been at the meetings according to Thomas.
The issue of renaming the school in honor of Thomas Edwards Sr., former superintendent of the Sunflower County School District, was raised at a September 2018 board meeting, when President Thomas made a motion to revise the district’s policy and rename the school in honor of Edwards.
At that time, the effective school board policy apparently stated that an individual would have to be deceased before a structure could be considered for re-naming in their honor. Subsequently, Edwards passed away in November of last year.
At the September session, Johnson had asked Thomas to break up his proposal into two separate motions, which he did. However, Palmer asked the members to hold off voting on either matter until the policy could be reviewed.
Nevertheless, Thomas made a motion to revise the policy, but it failed with only he and member Emma Golden voting yes. Member Melanie Townsend-Blackmon voted no and Johnson abstained. Member Torrey Bell was absent.
Thomas attempted to move ahead with his second motion to rename the school contingent upon the policy revision. However, Palmer intervened. “I would advise the board to wait until the policy process takes place first,” he said. Palmer was also for giving the other communities an opportunity to “chime in” since the name change would affect them also.
A list of names was mentioned during that session; however, Johnson took issue with the list because it reportedly only contained names, but no addresses. “I would like to know where these are from, they all may be from Ruleville and that doesn’t give any input from Sunflower and Drew. They may not be on board with this and they share that school,” Johnson said.
Allen first appealed in person at the group’s January session after hearing that the board made the decision to rename the school at its December meeting.
He adamantly stated that their objection had nothing to do with the former superintendent, who was a very good and lifelong friend, so he had no quarrels with the proposed new name for the institution. “We the graduates of Ruleville Central High, we just want the school to remain Ruleville Central High,” Allen said at the time.
Allen spoke of the school’s history as well as his and his advocates’ ties to the historic school, while reiterating his plea. He recently said, “I just don’t know why Mr. Edward Thomas is so anxious to change the name of the school.”
After last Tuesday’s session, McDaniel said he would have to talk to his clients first before making a determination of his next step.
