While reading the website of the Virginia Beach School Board, I noticed a document called “Code of Ethics” for School Board members. And it’s signed by Sandra Smith Jones, the member who took a job in Saudi Arabia but won’t resign her School Board seat.
It states, “While serving as a member of the Virginia Beach School Board, I will accept the responsibility to improve education, and I will:”
It lists 20 things the Board member will do. Check out number 11.
“11. I will make an effort to attend all Board meetings.”
Now, when a member is working in Saudi Arabia and only in the United States every 3 or 4 months, how does that member make an effort to attend meetings that are scheduled ever other week?
Will Sandra Smith Jones fly halfway to America and claim she got stuck in air traffic?
Will she stand at the dock by passing board trying to hitch a ride?
How, please tell me how, how is she going to keep her ethical pledge to “make an effort to attend all meetings”?
She also promised Number 12.
“12. Come to Board meetings informed concerning the issues under consideration.”
Well, isn’t it implicit in that pledge to actually come to Board meetings? It doesn’t say, “When you decide to come back to the country ever so often, brush up on the agenda.”
She signed the ethics pledge. To me, it looks like she’s violating it.
That is, unless the School Board receives a report during every meeting she misses about how she made “an effort to attend.”
