The Municipal Association of South Carolina and the South Carolina School Boards Association recently announced a joint civility initiative in a press conference in Columbia. The effort will encourage local elected officials — both those in municipal government and in school districts — to adopt a civility policy for their meetings and their interactions with one another.
Todd Glover, executive director, Municipal Association of South Carolina; and Mayor Rick Osbon, City of Aiken and president of the Municipal Association board of directors; were joined by Scott Price, executive director, SC School Boards Association; and Gail Hughes, president of the SC School Boards Association and chair of the Dorchester School District Two board of trustees, in announcing the partnership. Board members of the SC School Boards Association and the Municipal Association of SC were also present.
Both associations are in a position to promote good leadership at the level of government closest to residents’ lives, SCSBA Executive Director Scott Price said, calling attention to the cross-section of local communities found at any school board meeting.
“For SCSBA, it is a wonderful and timely opportunity to re-energize the civility initiative launched in February 2020 just before the pandemic shut things down and forced a pivot to other priorities,” said Price.
“As educators, school board members — keeping the focus on students — will recognize a teachable moment when they see one. They know that due to their unique role as school boards, modeling behavior they wish to see exhibited by students is part of their job description,” Price said.
In 2021, the Municipal Association’s board of directors adopted a strategic plan that included restoring civility in government as a top priority. Since then, the
Municipal Association Executive Director Todd Glover said that the two groups coming together, communicating and seeing that they had a common interest in restoring civility to public meetings was itself an example of civil cooperation.
“We hope this partnership will begin a course in our country that will allow us to return civil discourse to the democracies of South Carolina, and eventually the United States,” he said.
The video of the press conference is available here along with all of the Municipal Association’s other civility resources.
###