Nothing like a First Amendment Solution ...

LMFAO from Melissa's blog:
“Based on the fact that The Stranger just dropped their endorsement of me like a hot rock and called me a frothing idiot I will back off the policy I was totally defending 4 days ago” said School Board Director Harium Martin-Morris.

Not LMFAO:
You screwed up on the initial Martin-Morris endorsement and fixing it a day before the election is king of lame. Buetow is smarter, more engaged and according to you - cuter. If she loses, your punishment will be 4 years of Martin-Morris. Dolts.

I'd like to think this was about free speech and shared values, but it's really about caving to pressure-- the only thing SPS is good at.

At least now a certain School Board director who doesn't like to see dozens of angry people at community meetings won't have to. This has been shelved until 2012, by which time the School Board director shall have more evenings free and no more responsibility over the Seattle Schools Superintendent. A relief for everybody.

Woohoo! High five, gadflies!

Does this mean Harrium Martin-Morris is re-endorsed?

@Agdtinman: SLOG said elsewhere it is "still hating on Martin-Morris." All is right with the world on this one.

I signed the petition to drop it and even wrote a comment about what a waste of time it is to be doing something so wrong based on no new situations showing any need to address this area of policy. Less than 2 hours ago. I am so powerful and influential!!

So when and where, exactly, did the Board and the staff get together to make this decision? The Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee didn't meet and decide it. So where does Director Martin-Morris get the authority to decide to pull the change?

Then again, maybe he didn't do it. Maybe the change was made unilaterally by Dr. Enfield.

Here's the thing. If it went down as Dr. Enfield described, and the "school board directors and district administrators jointly agreed to revisit the policy" then the Board is meeting and making decisions outside of their meetings and THAT is a violation of the Open Meetings Act.

Now we have more information - from Brian Rosenthal of the Seattle Times - about how the decision to pull the policy change was made. Director Martin-Morris and interim superintendent Enfield decided it together on the phone.

Director Martin-Morris was quoted as saying "That's the way the process is supposed to work."

Actually, no. Individual board members speaking on the phone with the superintendent are not supposed to be able to unilaterally make amendments to motions before the Board. That's not the way the process is supposed to work at all.

The way it is supposed to work is that Mr. Martin-Morris is supposed to propose an amendment to the motion at a Board meeting and the Board - all of the members of the Board - votes to decide whether to amend the motion or not.

This is a motion that was already introduced. Any material changes in the motion constitute an amendment to the motiona and don't get done with a phone call to the superintendent.

Once again, Director Martin-Morris demonstrates how he is completely unfit for office.