The Cherokee County School Board should not have passed a motion to reach a “conclusion“ about an athletic trainer last week, S.C. Press Association attorney Jay Bender said Thursday.

School trustees voted 7-2 to approve a motion following an executive session to have the district administration meet with Mary McDaniel to discuss the board’s conclusion regarding the Gaffney High athletic trainer position.

School trustees did not state the conclusion reached during the board meeting when they returned from the closed-door session.

Cherokee County School Superintendent Dr. Bill James met with McDaniel on Tuesday morning following the school board meeting. The result of the meeting was the Gaffney High athletic trainer will not continue in the $18,000 a year trainer position.

Public bodies are allowed to go into executive session to discuss a personnel issue such as the employment or termination of an employee. But Bender said any action taken on a personnel matter must be done in open session.

“If the executive session was for the purpose of discussing the employment of an individual (or the termination), I think the board could properly consider a motion to take the action discussed in executive session,” Bender wrote in an email response to a question from The Gaffney Ledger. “By stating the motion in terms of the ‘conclusion’ reached in executive session there is a suggestion that a decision was made in executive session. If that is so, the law was violated.”