Knox school board member pleads guilty to lesser charge

[Lola Alapo]

Knox County school board member Bill Phillips has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of misdemeanor assault.
Read more here:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/feb/12/knox-school-board-member-p...

Lola Alapo
K-12 Education Reporter
Knoxville News Sentinel

[Lisa Starbuck]

I am hearing from a lot of people in the 8th District who think Bill should resign. I do too, partly because I think he needs to focus on his family right now, but also because the district doesn't need the controversy and I think we need someone who doesn't have this baggage. Anyone can make a mistake, but those who are in public office need to be mindful of their obligation to set an example. For what it's worth, I thought Bratton should have resigned as well.

[Debi]

Lisa, I totally agree with you. He needs to step back and take some time inward to deal with his issues. As you said, we can all make mistakes. There is a verse in The Bible (New Testament, can't recall book/verse) that talks about how leaders of the church shouldn't be leaders unless their household is under control. I have always understood that to mean if our home life isn't in line, there is no possible way we can then lead in anything and that our first priority is to our home. As Beth Moore once said, she can succeed at many things but if she is a failure at home then there has been no success.

I also totally agree with you regarding Bratton. Why on earth is someone over our school system who couldn't even be permitted on school grounds? I would suggest they both resign.

[Amy Wright]

Debi:The verse that I think you are talking about is in : 1 Timothy 3:5-6 The KJV says
5-"(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)
6-Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil."Also, another quote is "No success can compensate for failure in the home."

[Lisa Starbuck]

Bill has actually pled guilty to a crime. The law director is going to address the ramifications of having someone who is convicted of a crime serve on the school board at their work session on Monday, Feb. 16th at 5:00 pm.

[Ahnna]

Thank you for the update Lisa. I will be there to see how it goes.

[Vic Spencer]

I would be a bit cautious about this. There is always an ideal side to situations, and a practical side.

First, what is really the criminal charge in its current form if it was changed. Is it a "no lo contendere" situation, where the charge cannot be used by definition or because it has become insignificant.

If he does not want to resign: a. Does the Board have a legal position to enforce, and b. Is this really the best way for the Board to part from $100-150K in today's situation, when in fact there was a second case that may be more damaging to the reputation of the Board than this one. A settlement merely ends a case. It does not prove innocence. And as I recall, the Board paid for THAT about $23K for which a lot of school materials can be purchased, when I get complaints from teachers that they don't even have books they need or even copying paper.

I spoke strongly about Board image and the fact that a role model situation has to go beyond the legal status of an offender of that image. But in today's financial situation, like it or not, we must be practical, and consider all mitigating circumstances. In addition to what I mentioned above, I heard or read that some drug interaction may have been involved. If a doctor is willing to risk his reputation to attest to that, then it should be considered, because it may have modified "willful conduct" on which the allegation was based. I don't know if this is the case, but this is how I would think through the problem.

There is a legal consideration, but it is not enough. For being an educator or a Board member, there must be a role model consideration also, but I am not sure that this one is defined under TN law or not. Thirdly, we cannot ignore a mitigating medical or other circumstance, the effect of which the accused cannot control as established by an expert in the field. If such a mitigating circumstance happened to me, I would hope that people would be fair.

Newspapers sell, when they deliver bad news, especially bloody news. Also consider that all facts do not come to light right at the beginning, but we people tend to render judgment on others real quickly. I would certainly not blame the paper in any way, but we should understand how they work and how people become "believers" at the initial hint of a bad story that goes against our moral fiber.

But in the end, we must be fair to each other. He may be guilty as hell. But first, I would like to walk through all the considerations that we as human beings should take into account.

I had to become older than 60 to have the following dawn on me about human behavior. You surely noticed as I did how people just parrot the Lord's Prayer in church, but as soon as they are out of church, it does not get practiced along with many other things that Jesus was very good at teaching us. For example "Thy will be done, as it is in Heaven.", or "Forgive us our debts (trespasses), AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us", most of just conveniently ignore."

Judging organizations is easy when you see undelivered objectives. It is black and white provided that the objectives are measurable. But judging individual people can be done only by Him who knows all about such person. And THAT ain't us friends. I must tell you that I try to follow this idea, but I find it very difficult to follow. For example, I think that the Board of Education has done a very poor job over about three decades with the education of our kids. But in today's Board, I really like all the people with whom I had a chance to chat. And all seem that way, and I am certain that they are not out purposefully to dumb down our kids. And I really hope that they will change the trend. See my point?

[Debi]

Vic, I get what you're saying. But I don't think stating board members should step down is refusing to forgive. I think the opposite, it's saying, "Hey Dude, you got a problem. Go home & work on it." It's giving permission to let them off the hook of their responsibilities.

[Jen Clemons]

I agree. We have had too much controversy in our local government and those in positions of leadership need to understand we hold them to a higher standard. I am in the 8th district and feel he should resign as well.

[Vic Spencer]

Ladies, we have two such people on the Board. The Board has no legal authority in this particular case, and in the other case the Board paid for most of his settlement. Settlements do not remove guilt. In each of these cases the Board member would have to resign, and they will not do it. The Board does not even have a policy to fall back on. They could create one, and should create one for future cases. I was at the Board meeting tonight and even commented on this situation there. If these guys want to stay on the Board, there is absolutely nothing the Board can do to take them off. There is no legal basis for a law suit. You can state that they should step down, but with politicians who run for office, I don't think any of them would resign if asked to do so. You have to have a big ego to run for office. I hope that these two guys will be highly motivated to do an excellent job. I am just trying to explain to you that practicalities rule in our environment, even if the situation is less than ideal. It is up to the Board to propose and enact policies and somehow change the very old laws in this area, so that they can deal with similar situations more effectively in the future. Like it or not, this is the situation. By the way, there is a letter from a doctor laying guilt on medicine interaction, and evidently the initial reports that got into the paper were incorrect, because the initial judgment has been changed to a much lighter event, as in no gun, and no domestic violence. So we have to be very careful with our judgment about these things and definitely wait for investigative results and other mitigating circumstances before we pass judgment based on an initial article in the paper. Just my thoughts and what I found out.

[Jen Clemons]

Vic, we understand what you are telling us. We as constituents can ask him to resign or bow out graciously if we desire though.
I would ask those of you on School Matters to comment on WBIR and Volunteer tv's websites as well. A commenter on WBIR thinks only 1 person wants Phillips to resign. Lets make our voices heard.
This is really about being disappointed by the actions of our board member. He has not lived up to the type of leadership we expect from our representative. He has plead guilty to a misdemeanor. I appreciate his attempt at being our representative but I want someone who has better self-control and understands that public figures will be under scrutiny when they take these positions.

[Vic Spencer]

Of course Jen. I just could not do it to anyone if the doctor gave a statement that the medications he prescribed created such situation. In my opinion it would be unfair to judge a person on a first occurrence like this. I guess the other case influences me also. The Board PAID about 90% of HIS settlement. I don't know if his constituents spoke up like you at the time. How could we treat one of them one way and the other differently. Jen, you or Debi explain to me please how I could support this in a fair way.

[Icare]

1. Mr. Phillips was only charged with a misdemeanor because the GA's office accepted his plea bargain so they would not go to trial.
2. Mr. Phillips admitted his guilt.
3. The original police report which his wife signed stated that he had a gun, which she touched. She later changed her story.
4. The BOE DID NOT pay Mr. Bratton's settlement as was stated at the board meeting last night and emphasized. They paid a settlement on behalf of Knox County schools for the principals failure to follow proper procedure.
5. Mr. Bratton was never charged or convicted of a crime, however if his constituents were weary of his actions and unhappy with his response they should have spoken up.
6. As Mr. Phillips has chosen not to resign it will now go back to the people in his district who will start a petition asking for a recall and remove him from the board. This cannot happen until he has served 1 year in his position, so expect to see this happen in September.