Ind. school officials embroiled in access flap

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) - The vice president of South Bend's school board has been asked to resign his position after he questioned the legality of a closed-door meeting.

The board's president and secretary held a news conference Friday to ask Bill Sniadecki to step down. They also asked for a public apology, the South Bend Tribune reported.

School Board President Roger Parent said that Sniadecki had broken rules and board policies and even bullied Superintendent Carole Schmidt during the past year.

If Sniadecki doesn't issue an apology and relinquish his duties as vice president, the board could move to censure him, said attorney Michelle Engel, the board secretary.

According to the board's policies, a board member who has established a pattern of misconduct "characterized by blatant violation of the Board's Code of Ethics, oath of office, policies, or parliamentary rules of order," can be censured with affirmative votes from four board members.

"If anybody needs to be censured, it's Roger Parent," Sniadecki said after learning about the news conference, to which he wasn't invited. "Any issue that he doesn't want any controversy over, he cuts you off."

Earlier this week, Sniadecki told the Tribune that he thought a discussion at a closed board meeting on Wednesday may have gone beyond the scope allowed by Indiana's public access law.

A required notice said the private meeting was being held to discuss threatened or pending litigation under guidelines set by the law. Sniadecki said the board discussed how a 10-year-old consent decree requiring racial balance might affect the potential closing of three schools. But he said he grew uneasy when the discussion ranged to what might happen to the buildings, including the possibility that they might be acquired by charter schools.

Other board members disagreed over whether Sniadecki expressed his discomfort with the discussion during the meeting, as he claimed.

Indiana Public Access Counselor Joe Hoage said he also questions whether the meeting met legal requirements because the notice apparently didn't cite the proper exception that would allow it to be closed.

"If the litigation is over, there isn't a pending case," he said, "You wouldn't be able to meet under that subsection (of the law)."