Embattled school board member Connie Bernard is scheduled to appear in court Thursday for a status hearing in the criminal case stemming from a 2018 profanity-laced confrontation with a partygoer at a neighbor’s home.
Bernard has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of simple battery and also to entering and remaining after being forbidden.
But the case could be resolved before the scheduled hearing. At a status conference in July, Bernard’s attorney reportedly told 19th Judicial District Court Judge Ronald Johnson both sides were working to resolve the dispute prior to Thursday’s scheduled hearing.
Regardless of the outcome, those calling for Bernard’s resignation from the school board in an unrelated controversy are continuing to collect signatures for a recall petition.
So far, they say they have about 1,140 of the approximately 8,200 they need to collect before December in order to begin the process of trying to remove Bernard from office.
The recall effort stems from a flap that began earlier this summer, when Bernard remarked, in connection with a discussion over potentially renaming Lee High School, that people needed to learn more about the life of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Weeks later, during a heated and lengthy school board debate over the renaming issue, Bernard was seen shopping online for clothes—an observation later confirmed through a public records request to the school board.
Bernard has resisted calls for her resignation and says she plans to serve her term, which ends at the end of 2022.
Fellow school board member Dadrius Lanus, who is monitoring the recall effort, says he expects to see “a surge” in signatures following Thursday’s court hearing.
“Yard signs and billboards are also forthcoming,” he says.
Even a well-funded, recall effort, however, faces a steep road ahead, political analysts say.
“They’re not going to recall her,” predicts consultant Clay Young. “It’s next to impossible to unseat an incumbent and recent history shows that she is not interested in resigning. With everything else going on in the community, I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I was trying to unseat her.”
