The Medford School Board held a work session Thursday with an agenda covering everything from updated budget information and discussion of a potential local option levy to cell phone policy and safety enhancements at district schools.

The meeting was the third of the current school year after a special session held Aug. 27 to discuss a complaint against an unnamed board member, and a board retreat held for most of the day last Friday.

During the Aug. 27 meeting, the board voted to refer the complaint, presumed to be directed at board member Michael Williams, for investigation. Williams voted “no,” while board members Jeff Kinsella, Suzanne Messer, Michelle Atkinson and Kendell Ferguson voted “yes.” Board member Lilia Caballero abstained, she said, due to a possible conflict of interest.

The meeting came on the heels of public outcry about the reassignment of School Resource Officer Josh Doney. Williams publicly aired his concerns about the decision, which he said stemmed from Doney challenging district security director Ron Havniear. During the Aug. 27 meeting, audience members, including district parents and faculty, wore T-shirts and held signs in support of Williams and Doney and offered up the occasional boos and criticism aimed at board members.

While last Friday’s annual retreat brought discussion of topics ranging from board norms and procedures to the district’s financial and enrollment numbers, the first hour focused on audience behavior during the previous meeting and ways to address it going forward.

Board Chair Cynthia Wright opened last Friday’s retreat with a statement: “Medford School District board meetings are a safe zone for all who attend. Public attendance and comments during the designated time are welcome but must meet a standard of civility. Threats, intimidation, harassment, physical aggression, racial slurs, swearing, yelling or any other disorderly conduct that disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of any Medford School District board meeting will not be tolerated.”

Wright said she had been “reflecting quite a bit” about the recent meeting and on how the board could “be leaders at this moment.”

“What struck me is, in these times of division, we want our educators to be teaching civil discourse, and we must model that,” Wright said.

“The behavior that we saw in our audience on Tuesday night is not behavior we would accept in our classrooms. We do not want our classrooms disrupted so our teachers cannot teach, just as we cannot have our board meetings interrupted so that we cannot do our business.”

Wright, who referenced a policy from another school district, noted that the “public has a right to transparency and to be able to view our board meetings,” but that the board is not obligated to allow in-person attendance or to hear citizen comment. Wright said the board had the discretion to return to the COVID-era policy of “all virtual” meetings, or could allow any variation of in-person or remote board member and citizen participation.

Kinsella said he felt board meetings had become increasingly disrespectful, and that he was “really disappointed” in the district teachers who attended the recent meeting.

“Teachers come to us and they talk about disruptive behavior in their classrooms, and they want us to help them, and what they modeled the other night was exactly what they don’t want in their classrooms,” he said.

Williams took issue with discussion about potentially removing community members from meetings and asked to clarify audience behavior deemed disruptive versus unsafe.

“To the extent that you would remove someone from a meeting, that’s an exercise of power and people have the right to be here. People have a right to be heard. People even have the right to maybe say things that make other people uncomfortable,” Williams said.

“My concern with this is that we might take some excessive action to remove someone from a meeting simply because they might say something that we are uncomfortable with, but might not necessarily be threatening, so what are the limitations? What are … the guardrails that we’re going to have in place?”

Wright told Williams she was “less concerned about what they’re saying than the fact that they’re disrupting our meeting, because then we can’t conduct our meeting.”

Ferguson said she had “no problem with civil discourse,” but that audience members could do so “in a civil manner.”

Atkinson said she didn’t feel safe during the Aug. 27 meeting.

“Maybe it’s different for the men in the audience, but as a woman I did not feel safe. In fact, it was pretty much the least safe I have ever felt here on the campus where I grew up and went to school,” Atkinson said.

“I did not feel safe to speak my mind. … We are all here because we care about the kids, and I want us to be able to get along and to have meetings where we can address the things that are going to help students. I don’t know if we need a new policy or we need to follow the policy we already have.”

Williams voiced concern at the board “taking a lot of time to explore a policy and doing work to address how people behave themselves in our meetings” rather than focusing on challenges the district faces.

“I fully appreciate that we need to have a functioning meeting … However, to talk about how we are going to address peoples’ behavior that makes us feel uncomfortable when they come to meetings, in my mind, is second to some of these other issues.”

Wright raised her voice to Williams, noting, “None of us really wants to have this discussion, but we just had a really disruptive meeting on Tuesday night, so now we have to, because we have to figure out a way to conduct our meetings without being disrupted.”

Ferguson spoke on the difference between being made uncomfortable versus feeling unsafe. Uncomfortable, she noted, described bargaining talks, budget discussions and heated talks with teachers over classroom behavior.

“Unsafe is when these people are out here screaming and yelling at us by name, telling us that because one school resource officer got reassigned, we have blood on our hands and kids are going to die because of us,” she said.

“The idea and the assumption that any of us wants a kid harmed … None of us (wants) kids hurt, and to be screamed at like that when we’re simply trying to conduct board work … You have to act in a civil manner. You can’t have somebody feel like they’re not safe to make a comment or to express their concerns because the crowd is turning into a mob.”

Williams said he felt the board should ask itself, “Why is it that people feel compelled to use their voice in the way that they’re using it?” He told fellow board members, “the First Amendment has nothing to do with being respectful.”

“Having the ability to use your voice has less to do with how you ‘make people feel’ and more to do with your ability to express your opinion. To quote Martin Luther King, he said that rioting was the voice of the unheard,” Williams said.

Superintendent Bret Champion told the board he felt responsible for the safety of district employees in attendance during the meeting and that he felt unsafe, as well.

“Whenever somebody stood up and pointed at me and said, ‘Bret Champion, you’re gonna have the worst year of your life. We’re gonna make this the worst year of your life!’ I felt threatened. I felt unsafe,” he said.

“All we’re asking, in this moment, is that we define for our public what the expectations are for the board. That’s it. That’s it! And, frankly, it’s fairer to the audience to know what the expectations are than to not.”

Wright said the board would vote on recommendations that come from a new board subcommittee — composed of Williams, Messer and Ferguson — which began meeting Thursday to discuss audience behavior and meeting participation guidelines. She reiterated that permitting citizen comment is not a requirement of the school board in Oregon, and that community members can send their concerns via email if “people aren’t going to behave properly.”

To view a recording of the retreat, visit https://portal.stretchinternet.com/msbm/ and click on the filmstrip icon.