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Caroline school board sends revised BGES MOU to attorneys, requests joint meeting after legal review
Summary
The Caroline County School Board voted to forward its redlined memorandum of understanding on the Bowling Green Elementary School expansion to attorneys and to seek a joint meeting with the Board of Supervisors after counsel produces a single draft the parties can review together.
The Caroline County School Board voted Aug. 18 to send a school-board redline of a proposed memorandum of understanding on the Bowling Green Elementary School (BGES) expansion to the Board of Supervisors’ attorney, ask both attorneys to draft one consolidated MOU, and establish a joint meeting for boards to review and collectively adopt the agreement once counsel has reconciled legal language.
Board Vice Chair Lydell Fortune said the revised MOU clarifies “the framework for the funding and construction of 2 to 6 classrooms and a gym” at BGES and asks that certain statutory text be included in full rather than summarized.
The vote followed a lengthy public discussion among board members about process and timing. Board member Michael Hubbard opposed the motion, saying he preferred lawyers to work through the draft and return it for separate adoption by each board without a planned joint meeting. “I think it would be beneficial if we let the lawyers work out the language and then present it back to each respective board,” Hubbard said.
Sean Kelly, who made the motion, argued the boards should meet together after the attorneys produce a single draft so elected officials and the public can discuss implementation and next steps. “This is dragging on. This has taken entirely too long to get done,” Kelly said, urging a joint public discussion of how taxpayer dollars will be spent.
The school-board redline requests that the Board of Supervisors acknowledge the BGES classroom expansion is a temporary solution and commit to beginning design of a new elementary school by fiscal year 2027 with construction to start by fiscal year 2028. It also asks that the school board retain operational control of BGES upon completion and that disputes be resolved through good-faith negotiations.
Clerk call recorded the vote on the motion to pursue the attorneys’ joint-draft path and a subsequent joint meeting as: Allison Sears — aye; Lydell Fortune — aye; Michael Hubbard — nay; Calvin Taylor — aye; Sean Kelly — aye; Joanda Rollins Fells — aye. The motion carried.
Board members repeatedly framed their choice as procedural: whether to let attorneys reconcile statutory and constitutional citations before any joint public conversation, or to require a public, joint review of the finalized counsel-drafted MOU that also would include updates on BGES modular classrooms, the Lewis and Clark Elementary trailers, and planned BGES renovation work.
The school board’s action requests attorneys for both bodies produce a single draft MOU that “achieves collaborative board consensus,” and adds that the joint meeting agenda should include updates on the BGES trailer project and next steps for other temporary classrooms.
The Board of Supervisors had previously declined a request for a joint meeting and suggested the two boards exchange drafts with counsel first. The school board’s motion preserves counsel engagement while explicitly seeking a follow‑up joint meeting to discuss the consolidated product in public.
Next steps: the school-board motion directs staff to forward the redlined MOU to the supervisors’ counsel and coordinate counsel work; the board expects a single consolidated MOU to be produced and then placed on a joint-meeting agenda for possible collective adoption.
