By MARK BARKER

Last week, teachers, parents, and taxpayers watched in horror as Volusia County School Board Chair Jamie Haynes fell victim to another common ill spreading like a plague among area politicians — a weird compulsion known as “Coprolalia” (from the Greek kópros, meaning “dung or feces,” and laliā, meaning “speech”) — in short: “Talking S***.”

There was no obvious reason for it.

The item Chairwoman Haynes seemed irresistibly compelled to discuss didn’t appear on the agenda, and it certainly wasn’t a Pandora’s box her perplexed “colleagues” seemed anxious to unpack during a public meeting.

Yet, Ms. Haynes, apparently overcome by a compulsive need to lash out at those who instruct our children and support their education in the classroom, droned on, denying the School Board’s involvement in a spiteful scheme to decertify Volusia United Educators, the union representing some 3,000 teachers and paraprofessionals in Volusia County District schools.

In a mewling monotone, Ms. Haynes explained that the five elected members of the board were completely unaware that an outside attorney had been employed by the district to write a letter questioning the number of dues-paying members reported by Volusia United Educators to Florida’s Public Employee Relations Committee — a move that could set in motion a process leading to the union’s decertification as a bargaining unit.

There was simply no stopping Chairwoman Haynes’ fit of coprolalia — like a victim of selective amnesia, she denied any knowledge of the district’s attempt to torpedo the union and hammered on, personally castigating VUE President Elizabeth Albert by accusing her of spreading “inaccuracies.”

Then, the room was plunged into reality when the district’s General Counsel Kevin Pendley openly contradicted Ms. Haynes’ delusional yarn, explaining that each member of the board personally authorized employing the district’s outside labor attorney to send the notice to PERC challenging the union’s membership density.

The reaction of Board Member Carl “Namby- Pamby” Persis was even more bizarre as he questioned Mr. Pendley like someone just aroused from a deep coma, stammering, “… like, you told me at a board meeting? Or, you told me on a telephone call? Or in a private setting?, Or…?”

Like reminding a dementia victim what they had for lunch, Mr. Pendley carefully explained to Persis how, at Superintendent Carmen Balgobin’s direction, he contacted each board member individually, discussed the ramifications, and all agreed to send the notice to PERC.

That clarification resulted in Mr. Persis suffering a weird form of echolalia, as he seemingly repeated the noises, words and phrases uttered by Mr. Pendley, rehashing what had just been explained to him as though he were hearing it for the first time.

Weird.

I can only imagine that Ms. Albert, being of reasonably sound mind, was doing cartwheels through the chamber doors after watching the Volusia County School Board come unwound in a public meeting, openly exposed by the district’s general counsel as either naïve lumps or baldfaced liars (or both), in a dramatic exchange captured for posterity on video…

Now, the fallout continues…

In my view, it is incumbent on Superintendent Carmen Balgobin to openly explain to teachers, staff, parents, taxpayers (and confused board members) how this union-busting tactic got so far afield.

Then, she should step aside.

Stakeholders (and that includes everyone who pays taxes in Volusia County) deserve to know why the district insinuated itself into VUE’s certification process with the Florida Public Employee Relations Committee, how this could have happened without the direct knowledge and support of the Volusia County School Board, and what steps the board and district will take to improve relations with its employees, and restore the fractured trust of its wary constituents.

— Barker writes a blog, usually about local government, at barkersview.org. A retired police chief, Barker says he lives as a semi-recluse in an arrogantly shabby home in coastal Central Florida, with his wife and two dogs. This is excerpted from his blog, lightly edited (he swears a lot) and reprinted with his permission.