Attorney leads board orientation on trustees’ authority, executive sessions and communications

Andrea White, an education-law attorney with White's Story LLC, led a Dec. 10, 2024 orientation for the Lexington School District One Board of Trustees, telling trustees the board’s power resides in its collective actions and warning against unilateral conduct, improper executive-session use and informal interventions in personnel matters.

White opened the workshop by underscoring that trustees should not treat informal school visits or constituent conversations as opportunities to act individually. “When you go into a school, you are automatically seen as … a trustee,” she said, advising trustees to notify principals and the superintendent in advance of campus visits so they are not perceived as exerting boss-like authority.

Why it matters: White framed trustees’ most consequential responsibilities as adopting policy and hiring and evaluating the superintendent. She explained that day-to-day administration is the superintendent’s responsibility and stressed that trustees exercise authority only at properly noticed board meetings: “All powers of the Board of Trustees lie in its action as a group,” she said.

White walked trustees through several specific policy and legal touchpoints. She identified the district policy manual’s section B (trustee roles) and Policy BBAA (board powers) as guiding documents, and she referenced state law and the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act (Title 30) and Title 59 (school laws) when discussing executive sessions. She warned of “executive session drift” — using a closed session to discuss topics beyond the stated lawful purpose — and said courts and legal observers closely scrutinize such misuse.

On personnel, White explained why teachers’ contracts and some staff hires require board approval and why the superintendent typically makes hiring recommendations. She cautioned trustees against independent investigations of complaints about employees or candidates, saying that such inquiries can expose trustees and the district to defamation or other legal risk. Trustees should share constituent concerns with the superintendent and, if problems persist, raise them with the full board, she said.

White also discussed communications with the public and the media. While acknowledging trustees’ free-speech rights, she recommended that the board chair and the district’s public-information officer handle official statements; when an interview is unavoidable, she suggested issuing a written statement instead of an on-the-record interview to avoid being caught off guard by unrelated questions.

The presentation included practical governance advice: give trustees agenda materials with time to review (White said trustees typically receive packets several days in advance), prefer ad hoc committees over standing committees to reduce FOIA risk, and use objective and subjective measures in superintendent evaluations rather than relying solely on a checkbox instrument.

White used hypothetical scenarios to illustrate common pitfalls, including a trustee posting live updates from a school incident, a trustee pressing for direct access to payroll or vendor records, and trustees coordinating by email in ways that can qualify as an unpublicized meeting under FOIA. In one scenario she said trustees should immediately end a constituent’s attempt to lobby over an expulsion appeal to avoid compromising a future quasi‑judicial process.

The workshop closed with reminders about the limits of attorney‑client privilege in executive sessions — privilege applies when legal advice relates to a pending/threatened/settled claim or confidential attorney-client communications — and a note that the regular monthly board meeting is Dec. 17. Motions to open and later to adjourn the workshop were made and seconded during the session.