Court Finds No Malice or Deceitful Practices by School Board

The District was in Lonoke County Circuit Court last month on one of the cases filed by a Faulkner County resident, and the Court ruled today, April 10, 2024, that there were no malicious or deceitful acts by the Cabot School Board.

After failing to have Board members criminally prosecuted for alleged violations of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act (AFOIA), a lawsuit was filed over two issues: (1) the way the Board voted on the superintendent’s employment contract in 2022, and (2) the lack of an audio or video recording of the very last vote on personnel from each school board meeting, even though the vote was open to the public and recorded in the official meeting minutes.

Those official minutes were always posted to the District website and, the day after each board meeting, the personnel action from that vote was shared with all 1,500 staff members of the District via email. Regardless, the District admitted the oversight and began to record those final seconds even before the lawsuit was filed. Click here to see a clip from the August 16, 2022 meeting and the February 20, 2024 meeting to see the portion of the recording at issue in this lawsuit. As a reminder, the recordings of all Board meetings can be found on the District’s website.

As expected, the Court ordered that the District should continue to record the last vote as it has since 2022 and acknowledged that the District corrected its practice before this lawsuit was filed. The Court found no wrongdoing whatsoever in the District’s method of voting on the superintendent’s employment contract. In sum, the Court found “no malice or deceitful practices” by the Cabot School Board. The Court is still determining whether the District has to pay the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and, if so, how much.

Again, after the federal court ruling in favor of the District recently and the expected ruling in the court case today, the District is eager to get back to fully directing both its financial resources and time to what really matters: educating students in a safe environment.