COLUMBIA, S.C. — Richland School District Two board member Lashonda McFadden has apologized to Dr. Theresa Holmes after an argument transpired between the two during an executive board meeting on April 28th.
McFadden's outburst led to her arrest, and being charged with threatening the life of a public employee.
Chairwoman Dr. Theresa Holmes filed those charges, however she was not present at Monday night's meeting. The district telling NEWS19 she had a family engagement.
Before the meeting began Lashonda McFadden addressed the media and apologized to her students and the community, saying, “Apologizing to Dr. Theresa Holmes for the words that I said to her. They were very disrespectful and that is not something that I should be saying to any elders or or any human being at all.”
RELATED: Richland Two school board member arrested, facing charges after deputies say there was argument
She went on to say, “It was not my intent to use such vulgar words, I don’t do that normally and I would like to say that I am sorry because as an elected official and leader over your children, that is not something that I would want someone in this position to say.”
Her attorney, Alex Postic said McFadden and Dr. Holmes are not allowed to be one-on-one at any time.
“In this case they said that since they are both board members they could have contact, as long as there’s a third party there," said Postic.
At Monday’s meeting, centered around district safety and security. The board discussing adding school resource officers, improving conflict resolution strategies, addressing how weapons are coming into schools and fights.
RELATED: Richland Two discusses student safety after argument between board members results in arrest
Board member and Vice Chairman, James Manning says while the focus is improving security, they want to be cautious on how much security they implement.
Manning saying, “We’re looking into metal detectors and whether those will work for us or not, drug dogs we talked about that as well, but it does come with some legal and other implications.
He went on to say, “We want to be careful not to overdo it, we certainly want to make sure out schools are safe but we can’t go too far to where students feel like they are in a prison like environment.”
NEWS19 spoke to father of two, McGee Moody at the first security committee meeting, a week later he said he’s happy with the discussions he listened to.
Moody saying, “I feel like they are getting ready to move into that next phase to put things into action. They have an idea of the main things they need to confront.”
Manning saying while some of the proposed ideas will take time to implement, the district has made some decisions that can be implemented immediately.
Manning saying, “By the end of the school year we’re going to have increased administration presence, we’re going to decrease students ability to be in hallways with hall passes.”
According to the district before any decisions are made they want to hear from the parents on proposed security and safety ideas. NEWS19 was told this will happen at the next committee meeting.