Intimidation at Board Meetings
So there’s been a lot said about security at board meetings lately. Take Saturday’s article by Crystal Bonvillian of the Times, “Huntsville school board meeting audience met with metal detectors.”
Laurie McCaulley was told that Al Lankford, the district’s security chief, was concerned about “body language and demeanor at some of the meetings.” This is quite a curious statement.
You see, as someone who regularly attends board meetings, I am, of course, concerned about security at the meetings. Heck, my daughter was in attendance at the board meeting on March 15th, so of course I am interested in making certain that these bi-weekly meetings are safe. Every sane person shares that concern.
If I didn’t believe the meetings were safe, I wouldn’t go. If I didn’t believe they were safe, I certainly wouldn’t have allowed my daughter to attend.
But I do, and I did. And I’ve been at every board meeting since April 7, 2011 except two. In fact, if we count simply the bi-weekly board meetings for the past year, I’ve probably attended more of them than Al Lankford has attended. (For some reason Mr. Lankford wasn’t present from the January 17th meeting until about a month later. I was pleased to see him return.)
In other words, I’ve seen nothing in the audience’s body language and demeanor that would lead me to the conclusion that someone was behaving in a threatening manner. What I see at board meetings are people laughing, talking, applauding, saluting, and mostly sitting quietly and listening to the meeting.
Now, granted, I’m not there to watch the audience; I’m there to listen to the business being conducted. I’m also not a trained security officer. I know for a fact that a trained police officer is capable of “seeing” more than I.
But I am a writer and a teacher. I take my subject matter from observation of people as a writer, and I know when my students are alert, engaged, interested and learning (and I know when they are not) on the basis of their body language. So, while I do not have the years of training that I am sure Mr. Lankford has in identifying a threat, I do believe I am capable of seeing and noticing when someone is behaving in a threatening manner.
So while this is just my unprofessional assessment, not once have I seen anyone in the audience behave in a way that would cause me to be concerned about my safety.
But then I don’t see the world as Mr. Lankford, (or Dr. Wardynski for that matter) sees it. For example, Mr. Lankford, during our conversations on Thursday night asserted that sitting quietly and holding an iPad recording the Superintendent’s comments was an intimidating action. During that same conversation, he also referenced my sitting quietly at the State of the Schools address and holding an iPhone directed toward Dr. Wardynski and his presentation as an intimidating action.
He even claimed that my standing silently for 80 seconds as I waited for a response to my comments as an “intimidating action.” He stated multiple times that I was “intimidating the board” and that he wasn’t going to allow me to do that. He even implied that myIntimidation at Board Meetings - Geek Palaver: