What’s actually being argued
Three board members revised two governance bylaws over the objection of the other two trustees and the superintendent. BB 9310 (the rulebook for how the board changes its own rules) was revised in August–September 2025. BB 9322 (the rulebook for how board meeting agendas are set) was revised in January–February 2026 to give the board president final authority to approve the agenda.
Neither side disputes that the votes were valid majority votes. The dispute is procedural:
- The majority says Education Code §35010 lets a board majority adopt or amend a bylaw at any time — the existing bylaw’s revision steps can’t bind a future majority that doesn’t want to follow them.
- The minority and the superintendent say the existing Bylaw 9310 lays out specific steps (data gathering, staff and public input, related-policy review) that should have been followed first, and that the final-agenda-authority language adopted in BB 9322 has no equivalent in CSBA model practice or in comparable California districts.
What both sides agree on, broadly: the votes happened, who voted how, and what the new bylaw text says. What’s contested is whether the process the votes used was within the existing rules.
Timeline at a glance
| Date | What happened | Vote |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 14, 2025 | BB 9310 revision placed on the agenda. Malczewski’s motion to remove the item fails; discussion proceeds. | 2-3 (motion to remove fails) |
| Sep 11, 2025 | BB 9310 revision adopted (per the policy file’s revision date). | — |
| Sep 18, 2025 | Governance workshop with Scott Danforth of AALR/R as counsel. | — |
| Oct 23, 2025 | Board retains DWK as outside counsel; AALR/R wound down on in-flight matters. | 4-1 (Kelly opposed) |
| Jan 22, 2026 | BB 9322 first reading. Hills, Kelly, Morgan in favor; Malczewski, Perry opposed. | 3-2 |
| Feb 12, 2026 | BB 9322 second reading and adoption. Morgan, Hills, Perry in favor; Malczewski, Kelly opposed. | 3-2 |
The Aug 14 fight set the procedural template; the Sep 18 workshop and Oct 23 counsel switch shifted the legal-vendor landscape in between; the Jan 22 and Feb 12 votes adopted BB 9322. The chronology below carries the verbatim record for each.
What the bylaws actually say
The LBUSD-adopted versions of both bylaws are on this site. The relevant passages, alongside the on-record dais quotes, narrow what is and isn’t in dispute.
Bylaw 9310 — the revision steps Malczewski cited
The currently-active BB 9310 — Board Policies (revised September 11, 2025) describes the “Policy Development and Adoption Process” as five numbered steps. Steps 1 through 3, verbatim:
1. Identification of Need – The Board and/or Superintendent or designee shall identify the need for a new policy or revision of an existing policy. The need may arise from a change in law, adoption or revision of district vision or goals, educational research or trends, or changes in Board membership or the superintendency.
2. Information Gathering – The Superintendent or designee shall gather relevant information, which may include fiscal and operational data, staff and public input, related district policies, sample language from other districts or agencies, and any other resources necessary to inform the Board’s consideration.
3. Board Discussion – The Board may hold one or more discussions in public session to understand the issue and provide initial direction to the Superintendent or designee.
Trustee Malczewski’s August 14, 2025 floor objection maps to those exact steps:
“in accordance with these board bylaws, we haven’t identified a need for a new policy of or revision… we haven’t gathered fiscal other data, staff and public input, related district policies. We haven’t done that. Um we are planning to hold a public discussion tonight, but we’re doing it absent steps one and two.”
The phrasing in her objection tracks step 1, step 2, and step 3 word for word. Whether the pre-September 11 text was word-identical to this revised version is in Open questions (BoardDocs version history not yet pulled), but the procedural skeleton she cited is the one above.
Trustee Hills’s counter-argument on the same date does not deny that the listed steps exist. It denies that they are binding under Education Code §35010: “the maxim of all legislative law… is that one legislative body cannot bind another legislative body.” The contest is over whether a procedurally-codified five-step process is enforceable against a majority that votes to proceed without it.
Bylaw 9322 — the “final authority” clause
The currently-active BB 9322 — Agenda/Meeting Materials (revised February 12, 2026) is the text adopted by the 3-2 second-reading vote. The substantive change is in the “Agenda Preparation” section. Verbatim:
The Board president and the Superintendent, as secretary to the Board, shall work together to develop the agenda for each regular and special meeting. The Board President shall have final authority to approve the agenda before it is posted and proposed for adoption by the Board subject to the authority of the Board to remove an item(s) from the agenda or place an addition item(s) on the agenda for a future agenda.
The phrase “The Board President shall have final authority to approve the agenda before it is posted” is the language Superintendent Glass placed on the record as not having a publicly-accessible counterpart in CSBA-aligned policies in five states or in comparable high-performing California unified districts he reviewed. The CSBA model bylaw text itself has not been captured on this site, so the line-by-line comparison Glass described cannot be displayed here — that comparison remains in Open questions.
The pre-revision text of BB 9322 (the version active 2023-08-17 through 2026-02-11) is also not captured on the site; the diff between “shared (superintendent + board president)” and the adopted “Board President shall have final authority” language is reconstructable from the on-record discussion but not from a side-by-side artifact.
Where each side landed, in their own words
The dispute is procedural, not personal. The verbatim quotes below show each side’s framework on the substantive question: does the existing bylaw’s revision process bind a current majority, or doesn’t it?
| Minority and superintendent | Majority |
|---|---|
| Malczewski (Aug 14, 2025) — “in accordance with these board bylaws, we haven’t identified a need for a new policy of or revision… we haven’t gathered fiscal other data, staff and public input, related district policies. We haven’t done that. Um we are planning to hold a public discussion tonight, but we’re doing it absent steps one and two.” | Hills (Aug 14, 2025) — “the maxim of all legislative law at the federal, state, and local level is that one legislative body cannot bind another legislative body, a later legislative body. Any act of a legislative body can be undone, reversed, changed, modified, repealed by a subsequent legislative body.” |
| Glass (Jan 22, 2026) — comparative review of CSBA-aligned policies in five states and comparable high-performing California unified districts “did not identify any publicly accessible examples of presidential agenda resolution authority.” | Hills (Aug 14, 2025) — on the existing-bylaw clause permitting majority-vote suspension of any policy or bylaw: “by majority vote, the board may suspend enforcement of a board policy or board bylaw. Now you don’t seem to be too concerned about that, but that is the that is, I think that’s unconstitutional. I think it’s overly broad and vague and violates due process.” |
| Danforth (AALR/R counsel), per Hills’s account on Feb 26, 2026 — “both the superintendent and Dr. Malczewski, and for that matter, Danforth, uh Scott Danforth, they all took the position that the paragraph seven five-step process is exclusive, and you can’t amend, you can’t revise bylaws without going through that process.” | Hills (Oct 23, 2025) — “we still have a fundamental problem and that we there’s basics of the principles that are in the bylaws that we just do not have uh not only a meeting of the minds, but we just don’t even have a real baseline uh understanding of some fundamental principles.” |
The vote alignment held across both bylaws but with one switch on the BB 9322 second reading: Perry switched from “no” on January 22 to “yes” on February 12, and Kelly switched from “yes” to “no.”
Full chronology
The 19-item record, in date order
Bylaw 9310 (board policy on creating board policy)
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At the August 14, 2025 regular board meeting, the board placed Bylaw 9310 revision on the agenda. Trustee Joan Malczewski moved to remove the item. The motion failed 2-3. Discussion proceeded that night.
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Trustee Malczewski’s stated procedural objection on the floor: “in accordance with these board bylaws, we haven’t identified a need for a new policy of or revision… we haven’t gathered fiscal other data, staff and public input, related district policies. We haven’t done that. Um we are planning to hold a public discussion tonight, but we’re doing it absent steps one and two.” (Source: LBUSD recording of August 14, 2025 meeting.)
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Trustee Howard Hills’s stated counter-framework on the floor: “the maxim of all legislative law at the federal, state, and local level is that one legislative body cannot bind another legislative body, a later legislative body. Any act of a legislative body can be undone, reversed, changed, modified, repealed by a subsequent legislative body.” (Same source.)
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Trustee Hills’s stated objection to the existing bylaw provision: “by majority vote, the board may suspend enforcement of a board policy or board bylaw. Now you don’t seem to be too concerned about that, but that is the that is, I think that’s unconstitutional. I think it’s overly broad and vague and violates due process.” (Same source.)
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On September 8 and September 10, 2025, the parent advocacy group FUEL filed written feedback letters on the BP 9310 final draft revisions.
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At the October 23, 2025 regular meeting, Board President Sheri Morgan moved to postpone Board Policy items 10B-J to a special governance workshop. The motion passed. The agenda focused on restorative justice that night instead. Trustee Hills delivered a “fundamental problem” statement at this meeting framing the postponement as needed because the disagreement is structural rather than item-specific: “we still have a fundamental problem and that we there’s basics of the principles that are in the bylaws that we just do not have uh not only a meeting of the minds, but we just don’t even have a real baseline uh understanding of some fundamental principles.”
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On September 18, 2025, a governance workshop with district counsel occurred. The counsel present was Scott Danforth of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo (AALR/R), the firm that had served as LBUSD’s outside counsel during the Vickers/Viloria era and into the early Glass superintendency. Trustee Hills referenced this workshop on October 23, 2025 as having provided “real clear legal guidance” on the underlying subject, and again at the April 23, 2026 governance meeting where he summarized Danforth’s ruling on board delegation under Education Code §35161.
The AALR/R → DWK counsel transition (Oct 2025)
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At the October 23, 2025 regular meeting, the board voted 4-1 (Kelly opposed) to retain Dannis Woliver Kelley (DWK) as outside counsel for a one-year term. John Pearl of DWK has since served as board counsel; Meredith Johnson of DWK separately serves as the district’s bond counsel under a contract approved January 8, 2026.
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Per Trustee Hills at the February 26, 2026 governance meeting, Danforth’s position on Bylaw 9310 aligned with Superintendent Glass and Trustee Malczewski: “both the superintendent and Dr. Malczewski, and for that matter, Danforth, uh Scott Danforth, they all took the position that the paragraph seven five-step process is exclusive, and you can’t amend, you can’t revise bylaws without going through that process, which involves identifying the need, having a lawyer, and then having first reading, second reading.” (Source: LBUSD recording of February 26, 2026 meeting.)
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Board President Morgan’s stated rationale for the counsel transition at the same meeting: “we switched attorneys… the attorney that was attached to that attorney to that leadership left with that leadership, and we were assigned a new attorney from the same law firm. And his when he’s busy, he would send Scott Danforth. So we really only had two attorneys with one law firm, and all the rest of the law firms have been the same.” (Same source.) The two AALR/R attorneys handling LBUSD board matters were named on the record by Superintendent Glass on February 12, 2026 as Tony DeMarco and Scott Danforth.
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Trustee Hills’s stated rationale at the April 16, 2026 regular meeting: “the problem we got into is that the lawyers that we were dealing with that were holdovers from the last administration, they had conflicts of interest, and so we needed new counsel.” In the same exchange, Hills said of the AALR/R attorneys: “I respected the lawyers who worked for Jan Vickers and Viloria because in all their dealings with me, they had integrity and they did a good job.” (Source: LBUSD recording of April 16, 2026 meeting.)
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As of the April 16, 2026 meeting, LBUSD continued to be billed by AALR/R for in-flight historical matters: per Superintendent Glass, “we still have some historical cases and issues that were from prior to changing over to DWK and Mr. Pearl as board counsel that we’re still being invoiced for and a couple of those are still continuing forward and so as to not disrupt the support that the district receives, we continued with the counsel that was with AALR.” A January 2026 invoice of approximately $39,000 to AALR/R was referenced at this meeting.
Bylaw 9322 (agenda development authority)
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The substantive change Bylaw 9322 implements: final agenda-setting authority moves from “shared (superintendent + board president)” to board-president final approval, subject to the authority of the board as a whole to direct placement of additional items. (Source: event /events/2026-01-22-bylaw-9322-first-reading.)
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Superintendent Jason Glass publicly recommended against the revision as drafted at the first reading, citing four structural risks (gatekeeping risk, escalation ambiguity, operational and compliance risk, institutional stability) and noting that his comparative review of CSBA-aligned policies in five states and high-performing California unified districts “did not identify any publicly accessible examples of presidential agenda resolution authority.”
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At the January 22, 2026 regular board meeting, the board voted 3-2 on a first reading of revised Bylaw 9322. Trustees Hills, Kelly, and Morgan voted in favor; Malczewski and Perry opposed. A motion by Kelly to waive the first reading and vote immediately failed 1-4. Legal counsel advised the change was “legally permissible” but advised against an associated $50,000 consent-agenda threshold. (Source: LBUSD recording of January 22, 2026 meeting.)
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At the February 12, 2026 regular board meeting (a roughly seven-hour session), the board voted 3-2 on a second reading to adopt revised Bylaw 9322. Morgan, Hills, and Perry voted in favor; Malczewski and Kelly opposed. (Vote alignment differs from the first reading: Perry switched from “no” to “yes,” and Kelly switched from “yes” to “no.”) A motion by Malczewski to revert to the original wording failed 2-3. (Source: LBUSD recording of February 12, 2026 meeting.)
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At the same February 12, 2026 meeting, LaBUFA President Scott Wittkop and CSEA Chapter 131 President Thasa Zuziak announced they had filed a grievance over changes to the negotiation structure. Wittkop stated the grievance could delay the March 4 opening of negotiations.
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The same date’s closed session demonstrated the structural fact that the 3-2 majority is dependent on Trustee Hills being present. A motion by Kelly to move public comment forward produced a 2-2 tie (“the motion fails… two to two… because Howard’s not here”). After counsel coached Morgan on parliamentary process, the agenda was adopted 3-2 once Hills arrived. (Source: closed-session recording of February 12, 2026.)
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Erika Hennon Rule’s same-day Substack piece “Holding Office Requires Discipline” (February 12, 2026, slug
governance-is-not-a-storyline) references LBUSD’s bylaw on public statements (BB 9010 — Public Statements) without naming it by number; her piece is dated the same day as the second-reading vote.
What’s still open
After the on-record dais quotes and the bylaw text on this site, three artifacts remain genuinely missing — each one would close a specific axis of the dispute:
- CSBA model bylaw text for both 9310 and 9322. Without this, Glass’s “did not identify any publicly accessible examples” claim is documented as testimony but not as a direct text comparison.
- The pre-February 12, 2026 BB 9322 text, captured from BoardDocs version history. Without this, the dispute over what specifically changed in the “Agenda Preparation” section is described but not displayed.
- The LaBUFA and CSEA Chapter 131 grievance filings on Bylaw 9322. These would surface the specific labor-law provisions the unions argue the revision violates, which is a third axis of substantive disagreement distinct from the §35010 / CSBA-model framing.
The §35010 majority-rule framework Hills cited is established law and not what’s in dispute — the dispute is narrower and procedural.