CHAPIN -- A Lexington-Richland Five school board member allegedly confronted one of his board colleagues about a controversial campaign mailer outside an October meeting, prompting a mid-meeting dustup two weeks later and suggesting that years of contentious meetings may not be over for the Chapin- and Irmo-area board.
Midway through the board's Nov. 18 meeting, its first since voters elected two new members, member Cathy Huddle said that member Mike Satterfield had started yelling at her in the hallway as the closed session of the board's Oct. 28 meeting was on a break.
That October meeting came the same day as some people began to report receiving PAC-funded campaign mailers that supported Huddle and two other conservative board candidates -- and named and pictured Mary Wood, a Chapin High School English teacher who made national headlines after district officials stopped her lesson on a Ta-Nehisi Coates book.
Wood is Satterfield's daughter.
Satterfield was "inches from my face," Huddle said during the Nov. 18 meeting, "screaming" at her to the point where she started crying. In a statement, she asserted that Satterfield was yelling "You did this!" and "This is on you!" after showing her a photo of the mailer, of which she said she had not been aware.
Satterfield responded that Huddle was exaggerating the incident, saying he was expressing his concern about the mailer and his daughter's safety and had done nothing wrong.
"She was not threatened, she was not touched, she was exaggerating this whole situation," he said, adding that it was "inappropriate" to discuss during a public board meeting.
The confrontation stopped when now-former board member Matt Hogan heard the commotion and came into the hallway, according to Huddle's statement.
Huddle did not talk about the incident before Nov. 18 because she didn't want to impact the election and thought Satterfield would apologize, she said during the meeting, but reported the incident to the Richland County Sheriff's Department the next day. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Satterfield was absent for the public portion of the Oct. 28 meeting following the closed session, and declined to comment after the Nov. 18 board meeting.
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The mailers, which drew criticism from teacher groups and prompted safety concerns from Wood, were funded by a political action committee named Defeating Communism PAC. They supported Huddle alongside Ken Loveless, who lost his campaign to return to the Lexington County side of the board, and Jason Baynham, who won a seat on the Richland side.
They told voters to put parents "back in the driver's seat" and said that "controversy is rearing around our schools," next to a photo of Wood and a quote from her appearance on an MSNBC show.
Baynham donated $1,000 to the Defeating Communism PAC in September, according to Federal Election Commission reports. When news broke of the mailers, he said that he was disappointed but unaware of them, and that the previous donation to the PAC was "to support my campaign."
Loveless' wife, also a former school board member, also had donated $14,000 to the same committee. Loveless said at the time that he didn't think the donation was related to the mailer.
PACs like the one behind the mailer are not allowed to coordinate with candidates.
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The mailers and board members whom they supported also faced criticism from some public speakers at the meeting.
"I fear you've got so mired in politics you've forgotten your responsibility to safeguard the equal shot at learning for every child," Lee Bryant, a Chapin High School teacher, told the board. "You've also forgotten that an attack on one teacher is an attack on all teachers."
Lexington-Richland Five's board has for years been host to heated meetings rife with contention, including fights over pandemic politics, the tearful resignation of a superintendent in 2021, several lawsuits and disagreements over building projects and district finances.
Despite the election of two new members, there is little evidence that dynamic will change.
Even after members talked about the October hallway confrontation during the Nov. 18 meeting, the board briefly scuffled over the initial handling of construction projects funded by the recently approved $240 million bond referendum when board member Kevin Scully accused Huddle of trying to delay the projects. She wanted more detail before permitting the district to start hiring a construction management firm.
Board chair Kimberly Snipes urged her colleagues to be more respectful of each other at the end of that meeting.
"We don't have to be best friends, but we are serving our community," she said. "They're watching, our kids are watching, students are watching and I just hope we can be a good example for everyone else."
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