CHEBOYGAN — School leaders in Cheboygan County were reviewing concerns raised by a parent about a school board member’s social media activity, with district officials gathering facts about posts made by board member Travis Neville that reportedly included controversial comments about race, gender and social roles.
Superintendent Spencer Byrd said in the second paragraph the district was taking the complaint seriously and prioritizing student safety and support. While school board members are not considered district employees, parents had expressed concern the posts set a poor example for students in the classroom, he said.
Byrd said he managed the review process for all formal grievances filed within the district and followed specific protocols regardless of whether a complaint was made against a staff member or a district leader.
“And I always, obviously take parent complaints very seriously,” Byrd said. “I have a set of protocols that I go through when I get any type of complaint, be it against any employee, a board member (or) someone at the district level.”
District leaders were gathering additional facts about the social media activity before determining how to proceed, Byrd said.
He said that while Neville was not an employee of the school system, his actions still reflected on the institution.
“It’s kind of a slippery slope,” Byrd said. “Freedom of speech. As you know, board members are not employees of the school district. When we hear something like this, we take it seriously and we gather all the facts first.”
Byrd also described the school board’s governing structure, saying individual members did not have authority to act alone and that district operating procedures required a majority of the seven-member board to move initiatives forward.
“One of the things in our operating procedures is that we make sure that our board members understand that they can’t act as one, they have to act as seven,” Byrd said. “They only have one voice of seven and they have to come to a majority understanding to push anything forward.”
Byrd said the district’s focus remained on the classroom experience and maintaining an environment where students felt respected.
He said the goal of the fact-finding process was to ensure the district remained a positive example for the community.
“We want to be good, constituents,” Byrd said. “We want to be good role models for our students. So I want to make sure that this process is clean, that we gather all the facts, we make good decisions and hopefully those good decisions will point us in a better direction for the future.”
District officials planned to deliberate on next steps during a meeting tonight.