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After hearing more comments from the public and a few tense moments Thursday, the Suffolk Public School Board voted 5-2 to table ordinance 23/24-14, the division’s model policy.

Board member Karen Jenkins said she felt more conversation is needed.

“I think there is more room for conversation,” Jenkins said. “So, I move that we move this until next month so we can have more conversation because the bottom line is it’s about the students and making sure that everything we can possibly do to make sure our students are heard, our parents are heard, we’re not saying we are knocking anything down. We can see there’s a lot of things going on. So, I make a motion hopefully that we can have more conversation about this.”

Board member Kimberly Slingluff also suggested tabling the motion, adding she wanted to hold a public hearing or work session.

“I, too, would like to postpone this or table it until next month for further discussion, but with the idea that I would like to hold a hearing and/or work session where we can hash out the details of this policy,” Slingluff said. “It is too important of a policy to blindly pass through without going through the details of this policy. We are talking about the students, we are talking about the teachers, we are talking about the families, and I believe we are doing them a disservice if we simply take the proposed policy that was passed to the policy review committee and then passed from the policy review committee without changes and changes were made without another policy review committee meeting, and then it was presented to the board, and now we are being asked to approve this. I believe as a board, collectively, lay our partiality aside, look at the details of this policy because impacts the children of our school system, and that is why we are here.”

Board member Dawn Marie Brittingham, Ed.D., also agreed to table the vote, pointing out the recent Virginia Beach Public Schools decision and the process it went through before they took action.

“We need much, much more discussion,” Brittingham said. “If you take a look at our neighbors to the east of us, Virginia Beach, they not only voted their policy in this week, but if you look at their agenda, you can see that they went through a really rigorous process before they even considered voting their policy in … they had work sessions, multiple work session that we dedicate completely to forging that policy.”

However, board member Dr. Judith Brooks-Buck said the policy had been up for discussion for several months.

“We have had this policy up for discussion since July, August, September and now October,” Brook-Buck said. “We have discussed, we have listened to members of the community, we’ve had members of several communities try to rev up commotion from certain members of communities …We have been talking about this for several months. So, it was not that we did not have the opportunity. As a matter of fact, I did not have enough conversation in my borough, my residents were not interested in having a hearing or any discussion, there was no negative feedback from my constituents given to me. I did not get one phone call about trying to table this or stop it because my constituents understood this was policy basically, that we have had since 2021 and had not had a problem with the policy.”

Board members Brooks-Buck and Phyllis C. Byrum opposed tabling the item.

The next Suffolk Public Schools Board meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 9.