School board member says his vote against Family Life Committee roster was a mix-up

Carroll County Board of Education member Greg Malveaux said in a Facebook post that the vote he cast against the Family Life Advisory Committee's roster on Aug. 12 didn't reflect what he actually wanted, and that he plans to vote the opposite way when the board takes the matter up again next month. The statement came Aug. 21 in a post to the Greg Malveaux for Carroll County Facebook account.

Malveaux was one of four board members — along with Tara Battaglia, Kristen Zihmer and Patricia Dorsey — who voted no on Aug. 12, sinking the roster 1-4. Board President Steve Whisler cast the only vote in favor and tabled the matter to September without objection, leaving the committee, which reviews instructional materials for the district's health and family life curriculum, unseated with the school year set to start Aug. 31.

In the Aug. 21 post, Malveaux wrote that he "cast a public vote in which I mistook the issue at hand — Ms. Zihmer's rescinding of a FLAC nomination, not Mr. Whisler's FLAC nomination." He said he "sincerely thought we were going back to this initial move to rescind — to keep the person on or off of the committee," and apologized for "any confusion that my misinterpretation caused."

"I support all of our Board members in their nominee selections," he wrote. "I support Ms. Zihmer in hers and I support Mr. Whisler in his... When we re-convene next month, I will vote to support the chosen nominees."

Two separate committee appointments came up that night. Zihmer withdrew her own nominee, Krista Schultz, on the record, telling the board that old Facebook posts surfaced material she called "atrocious" and that her original vetting hadn't caught. The board did not vote on that withdrawal; Whisler, as chair, explained that a board member may pull their own nominee without a motion or amendment.

Battaglia then raised a separate objection to the same roster: at-large member Kathryn Hart, appointed by Whisler, never went through the application process. "Miss Hart did not apply last year for the application process," Battaglia said, "and this board has made precedents before where if there was a vacancy, we went with the previous applications from the year prior. So I am asking that someone else be picked from the applicants we had received last year."

Whisler declined. "If I'm not mistaken, I selected her, and I do not wish to rescind her name," he said, adding that he had checked with staff and "apparently there is no written requirement that somebody be in the pool that has applied."

Dorsey then asked, "Can you repeat what you just said? Did you say that they did not have to be a part of the pool?" Told that was correct, she followed up: "So we could select other people whether they applied to be on the committee or not?" Whisler said that "appears to be" the case. "I didn't know that was a practice," Dorsey said.

Superintendent Dr. Cynthia McCabe explained why the seat was open, saying a previous at-large member "stepped off the committee after year one of a two-year membership." Because the open slot fell within Whisler's allotted appointments, Whisler selected Hart to fill the remainder of the term, noting that he had checked with staff to confirm it was allowed. Assistant Superintendent Nicholas Shockney noted that written guidelines were "silent on this scenario in which there would be a vacancy midyear [of] the two-year term," with no explicit process on the books for filling a midterm vacancy.

Zihmer pressed on precedent grounds, noting the fairness issue. "We have a hundred people who applied. If I understand, there's not a policy. It doesn't feel fair to those hundred people who took the time to submit," she said.

McCabe noted that while written guidelines are silent, past practice was consistent: "Usually, in the past, when a seat opens, the person is selected from those who have applied." Dorsey added, "I didn't think we had another option. I thought we always had to refer to that list of folks who had applied."

Battaglia then announced her opposition: "In honesty or transparency, I'm going to be voting no on approving the Family Life Committee."

Immediately before the roll call, Whisler restated the motion: to approve the committee's membership "with the exception of that one name." Schultz was already out of the question, leaving Hart as the only contested appointee still under consideration.

Whisler's restatement of the motion, read aloud moments before members voted, described the roster minus Schultz.

Malveaux did not speak between the motion and the vote. Earlier in the same meeting, during the board's advisory council reports, Malveaux, who is the board's alternate representative to the Family Life Committee, with Whisler as its representative, had spoken approvingly of the committee's work, saying it "says something that our county is the only county that offers three different options in terms of family life curriculum."

Whether the reversal Malveaux has promised would change the outcome depends on the other three no votes. If Battaglia, Zihmer and Dorsey hold their positions, a second vote with Malveaux switching would still fail, 2-3.

The board is scheduled to take up the roster again at its next meeting, 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 125 N. Court St. in Westminster.