Bamberg County School District Board Sets Special Called Meeting for March 27

The Bamberg County School District posted notice of a Special Called Meeting of its Board of Trustees scheduled for Friday, March 27, at 9:00 a.m., with a livestream made available through the district's homepage and Denmark-Olar High/BCSD subpages at bambergschools.org.

The district did not release a public agenda ahead of the meeting. Special called meetings are typically convened to address urgent matters that cannot wait for a regularly scheduled board session. The board's most recent regular monthly meeting was held March 2, 2026.

Board Chair David Corder has led the board since the departure of Janeth Walker, who resigned after having chaired the board through its November 2024 reorganization. The current board includes Trustee Adrienne Blume, Trustee Jeni Bunch, Trustee Gwendolyn Bamberg, Trustee Harriet Coker, Trustee Cynthia Hurst, and Trustee Cathy Griffin, along with Vice Chair Naomi Eckels.

The Friday morning timing stands out: the board's special called virtual meetings in the 2025-2026 school year have typically been held in the evenings. A December 8, 2025 virtual meeting, for example, convened at 6:00 p.m. via the district's YouTube page and took up a single agenda item: a request for the Bamberg-Ehrhardt High School Culinary ProStart Team to travel to Myrtle Beach for the International Culinary Institute Bootcamp Competition on January 8-9, 2026, sponsored by culinary arts instructor Kathy Summers.

The board has called multiple special sessions over the past two school years, several of them tied to the ongoing superintendent search. A special called meeting on April 30, 2025 was convened specifically for legal advice on the superintendent search. The board then held back-to-back special called meetings on May 12 and May 13, 2025, to discuss employment and personnel matters related to that search. Dennis R. Ulmer, Jr. has been serving as interim superintendent.

The district's board was formally reorganized at a special called meeting on November 15, 2024, at the district office on 62 Holly Avenue in Denmark, where Superintendent Dr. Dottie Brown opened the session and attorney Charles Boykin of Boykin & Davis, LLC administered the oath of office to five newly elected or appointed trustees: Cynthia "Cindy" F. Hurst, Cathy Ayer Griffin, Tonya A. Sanders-Govan, David Corder, and Jeni Bunch. Boykin also briefed all new members on the South Carolina Ethics Act, the requirement to file a Statement of Economic Interest, and mandatory training obligations. That meeting adjourned at 6:28 p.m.

The livestream for Friday's 9:00 a.m. meeting is accessible through the district's website at bambergschools.org.