Muscogee County School Board re-votes, approves hiring of board member’s daughter amid more controversy | Education | Columbus Ledger Enquirer

A month of controversy about hiring a board member’s daughter as a teacher in the Muscogee County School District ended with more controversy at Monday night’s meeting.

For the second straight week, a resident stood in front of the school board and accused the administration of hiring District 3 representative A.J. Senior’s daughter as political payback in exchange for Senior’s vote to retain the district’s law firm.

Last month, Senior broke a state law when she was part of the unanimous vote to approve the hiring of her daughter, Jonai, as an eighth-grade English Language Arts teacher at Fort Middle School. Jonai was among the new employees up for approval. Senior, who joined the board in January, apologized and said it was a rookie mistake not to recuse herself from the vote.

Monday night, the board approved the employees again. This time, they took two votes: first for Jonai alone, then for the other new employees. After the board debated whether the properly legal move would be recusal or abstention, Senior recused herself from the vote on her daughter. Both votes were unanimous.

As board member Pat Hugley Green of District 1 noted, the brouhaha amounted to only a formality, because the administration, not the board, hires the district’s teachers, but this issue still was discussed intensely.

During the public comment period, Nathan Smith said Jonai wasn’t certified when she started teaching in August and was selected over three fully qualified applicants.

Senior and the administration have denied any quid pro quo.

via Muscogee County School Board re-votes, approves hiring of board member’s daughter amid more controversy | Education | Columbus Ledger Enquirer.