The Cobb school board's latest meeting was remarkable for what the board didn't do.

First, "teamwork" was bandied about, but when it came time to vote for new leaders, the board divided as closely as possible, electing Lynnda Crowder-Eagle as chairperson by a 4-3 vote - even though she was the only person nominated. Voting against her were John Crooks, David Morgan and Alison Bartlett.

Then the board voted 4-3 for new vice-chairperson Holli Cash - also the only nominee. She was opposed by Morgan, Bartlett and David Banks, who explained he voted against Cash because she's a Democrat and he's a Republican - maybe the most honest remark of all.

Ironically, the Cobb board's un-teamwork-like vote came just two days after the Marietta school board unanimously elected a new chairman and a vice chairman, displaying actual teamwork and unity.

The Cobb board at Wednesday's meeting did nothing about another hot issue - the illegally approved contract with legal counsel Glenn Brock's firm. No mention was even made of Brock's recent offer to cancel the auto-pilot contract worth about $2 million a year and start a pay-as-you-go hourly fee schedule, an obvious attempt to legitimize the rollover secretly approved in a 2007 closed-door board meeting.

Nor did the board bother to discuss the offer in its executive session Wednesday. Obviously, the board members are not concerned about the tainted vote or the cost or the in-perpetuity contract, even though previous chairman John Abraham as a candidate pledged to bid out the services.

Asked about Brock's offer after the meeting, Crowder-Eagle unilaterally declared the matter "will be discussed when his contract expires" in 2012. "They're under contract and we are moving ahead."

There was also no mention whatsoever of the threat to censure the maverick member Alison Bartlett for comments about teachers informing her principals at five schools encouraged them to vote for the "balanced calendar" to start school at the earliest date ever in Cobb.

John Abraham, immediate past chairman, said at the previous session in which Bartlett was verbally tarred and feathered that he would call for her censure at this week's meeting for violating board policy. That didn't happen - and there was no discussion even in the board's executive session.

Of course, it was the right decision, or non-decision, to drop the censure, a very bad idea. But why didn't the board make a decision in public and clear the air for the sake of Bartlett and the board?

The board also did nothing about President Obama's new Race to the Top program to dole out more billions of dollars in the name of educational "reform."

Finally, the school board's press conference, ballyhooed by Abraham as a giant step forward for transparency when it was introduced a few months ago, fell victim to Crowder-Eagle's new definition of "teamwork." She unilaterally decreed there would be no more press conferences. No comment from other board members.

Other than that, nothing happened. Your school board in action.

dmckee9613@aol.com