By Rex Hogan/Staff writer

El Reno School Superintendent Ranet Tippens said she has two opinions from lawyers who say the El Reno School Board can legally discuss the open school board seat in private session.

On July 14, the school board listed the vacant school board office 5 seat as a topic for discussion during an executive session.

Public bodies traditionally are allowed only to discuss personnel matters or legal problems in private meetings.

Tippens said Monday she discussed the matter with two attorneys before she put the open office 5 seat matter on the executive session agenda.

"I visited with Stephanie Mather and Larry Lewis before I put that on the agenda," she said.

Mather is an attorney with the Center for Educational Law, Oklahoma City, and Lewis is a lawyer for the Oklahoma School Board Association.

"I wanted to make sure I was doing it correctly because I've never had a school board member leave," Tippens said.

The El Reno School Board will pick a replacement for Basil Abouarrage, the former office 5 board member, who resigned because he moved to Yukon.
Tippens said both Mather and Lewis referred her to an attorney general's opinion that dealt with whether a county commission could meet in executive session to discuss the appointment of a commissioner to fill a vacancy.

"The statute to which you refer in your question, 51 O.S.1991, § 10(b), simply provides that a board of county commissioners may temporarily appoint a person to an elective office that has been vacated until a special election can be held to fill the office permanently. [FN1] Section 10(b) does not specify any particular procedures that a board must follow in discussing whom to appoint. In the absence of any statutory provision to the contrary, the allowance of executive sessions for the purpose of discussing the appointment of individual salaried employees and officers ... is permissible," the opinion states in part.

"The attorney general opinion was discussed with our school attorney. It allows public bodies to discuss the appointment of a person to fill a vacancy on the Board of Education, and has been relied upon by school districts throughout the state for a number of years," Tippens said.

"We had consulted our school attorney when creating the July 14 board agenda and also sent it for review," she said.