Board votes 5-4 against contract buyout

Coffee County Schools Director of Schools Dr. Charles Lawson will work out the remainder of his contract after a motion to terminate it early failed to pass in a 5-4 vote during a special called meeting Monday, June 3.

Prior to the vote, Lawson addressed the Board of Education during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“My contract has come up for renewal a total of four times in my tenure, I have never been afforded the opportunity to speak on my behalf,” he said. “I have elected to utilize this time to exercise my right as a citizen of Coffee County to state my case for continued employment as the director of Coffee County Schools.”

Lawson laid out what has been achieved at Coffee County Schools during his tenure as director, ranging from numerous improvements to school buildings, financial strides such as pay scale raises and a healthier fund balance and a district record four reward schools.

“When I arrived, Coffee County Schools had one reward school, the highest ever was two reward schools,” Lawson said. “At this time the district has four reward schools. When the state began assigning letter grades to schools this past winter, the rest of the South Central Region had 34% of the schools receive an A or a B. Coffee County Schools had 8 out of 10 schools receive an A or a B, for a total of 80%.”

Following Lawson’s remarks, Board member Thomas Ballard made a motion to buyout the remainder of Lawson’s contract, which is scheduled to conclude in June 2025.

Ballard said that while he did not think it appropriate to dismiss Lawson “with cause,” he did believe it would be in the best interest of the district to terminate the contract early through a buyout.

“Do I think that Dr. Lawson is an able administrator, absolutely and all the things that are listed in here, those are great, but I don’t think that we can continue with the adversarial relationship with the Board,” he said. “It interferes with the board business, it creates drama and a toxic atmosphere at the school district.”

Ballard said he was confronted by Lawson following the February Board of Education meeting while the two were out in public.

“…Among the things in the conversation was that he told me he that he was looking forward to and would enjoy making the board’s life miserable for the remaining term of his contract,” Ballard said. “Given what has transpired since that time I have to take him at his word and believe the present situation is going to continue.”

Lawson was given an opportunity to reply to Ballard’s statement, and said that was not the way the conversation went.

“Mr. Ballard and I did have a conversation at Dunkin’ Donuts,” he said. “I was forwarded a post where he had said it was an ask me anything event and so I attended and he and I were the only two that were present at the table at the time. So it looks like we are going to get into a he said-she said thing. Now I am going to say this, I have a lot of faults, one thing I am not is a fool. I would never say something to a board member that would be construed as insubordination and that statement right there would absolutely have been insubordination.”

“Now, did we have a long conversation, yes,” Lawson added. “Was it always pleasant, the answer is no, but I can say I did not make the statement Mr. Ballard had said I made.”

Board Member Robert Gilley said he believed more could be done for the students of Coffee County.

“I can’t disagree with everything you have in your statement (Dr. Lawson), but I think I can honestly sit here and say to myself and as myself I don’t feel like I have done enough to actually benefit one way or another the education of the child,” Gilley said. “We have approved, appropriated, built, expanded, paved, raised pay scales, we have done every bit of that at your recommendation, we have really strived but I feel we are just stagnant in what we are all actually here for, which is the education of the child.”

“I don’t feel we are making movements and I think it has transpired into a not so great relationship between some and you, Mr. Lawson and I feel like honestly we have got to consider something here,” Gilley said.

Board member Kathy Rose said she disagreed with Gilley regarding the academic progress of Coffee County Schools.

“Respectfully Mr. Gilley, we have four Reward Schools in this system,” she said. “Under Dr. Lawson’s leadership we established a salary scale that is going to help ensure the stability of the people who are in our classroom every year and let me tell you, stability in the classroom is what helps students achieve and I believe Coffee County is making progress with what I have seen especially during my time on the board.”

Board member Freda K. Jones asked Lawson if there are currently any schools classified as “Targeted Support and Improvement” schools in the Coffee County School District.

Lawson said Coffee County Middle School is currently classified as ATSI, or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement by the state.

“It has been ATSI for one year, previous to that it was TSI, previous to that it was ATSI again and then it was ATSI, I believe when I came in but of course there was the interruption in testing with COVID-19, so it has been in that realm during my tenure,” Lawson replied.

Board member Jennifer Peacock Hodge asked Lawson directly what his thoughts were on the motion to buyout his contract, and what his preference would be.

Lawson said that from a 100% selfish standpoint, he would say to buy him out and pay him his salary to travel or stay at home, but he could not recommend that to the Board.

That, actually from a 100% selfish standpoint sounds fantastic,” he said. “I do not believe that is the right thing to do and I will say this, I can’t think of any of my actions in my professional time in Coffee County Schools where I have acted with 100% selfish reasons, I can’t even think of a time when I have acted with 50% selfish reasons.”

Lawson said to buyout his contract at this time would cause unnecessary turmoil and damage to the school district.

Board member Brent Parsley said one thing that has always stood out to him throughout the process of discussing Lawson’s contract was the support he received from district teachers, staff as well as community members.

“We didn’t have those people coming up here against him, we didn’t have them standing here,” Parsley said. “We didn’t get tons of emails against him so I just want to thank the employees of the school system that stepped forward and said how they feel about him. That took a lot of guts, so thank you.”

Board members voting in favor of the buyout included Thomas Ballard, Freda K. Jones, Gary Cordell and Robert Gilley. Board members voting to oppose the motion included Brent Parsley, Larry Crabtree, Jennifer Peacock Hodge, Dr. Gary Nester and Kathy Rose.

Immediately following the vote, Rose made a motion to renew Lawson’s contract, which also failed in a 5-4 vote.