The standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 at the first 2007 Concordia Parish School Board meeting was mostly children.

From preschool to high school, the district’s students turned out in droves, bringing their parents along.

The pre-kindergarten girls wore satin dresses with ribbons around their waists. The big first-grade boys wore suit jackets. Moms, dads, aunts and uncles carried digital cameras

It was their night. They’d been selected by their respective schools as winners of the Sidney A. Murray Good Citizenship Award, and with the title comes a few minutes in front of the school board, a certificate and a photo with Superintendent Kerry Laster.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not such a big deal, but for a 5-year-old it’s a memory.

The district gives the good citizenship title out in each grade level at each school. Thursday night’s group was especially large because no awards were given at the December meeting.

The parking lot was overflowing onto the grass, a first in my three years of attending these meetings.

The crowd didn’t fit in the meeting room. Many stood outside in the hallway. More stood alongside walls inside the room.

The mass was there for the good citizens, not for the school board.

But it seems our school board members are the jealous type.

It seems they want all the attention.

It seems the Concordia Parish schools should be about them, not the girls in satin dresses and the boys in ties.

That’s the way they acted anyway.

Thursday was the first meeting of the new year, which means a new board and elections for new officers.

The agenda placed elections two notches above “special recognition” of the students. And in turn the real good citizens in the room got a case-in-point exhibition of how to not be a good citizen, from the adults, nonetheless.

It’s difficult to place blame in this situation, but elected boards are almost always viewed as a collective body once they are formed, so they should collectively share the fault.

Minutes into the meeting, allegations of racial preference started flying, and the allegations didn’t stop until the last car left the parking lot.

The adults griped over who would get to be president just like children fighting over who gets to play teacher. The presidency, however, is virtually a title only. The elected board member carries no more weight than any other member; he simply holds the gavel and reads from the agenda. Most of the time, gavel banging doesn’t work with this group anyway.

The voting process — on the presidency and all subsequent votes — had to be taken by a roll call vote because some board members wanted to see the person-by-person breakdown.

The drama — complete with yelling — went on at least 20 minutes. All the while, the good citizens were watching, listening and learning.

The precious children who have started their lives out on the right track went home with more than a paper certificate and a digital photo that night.

They went home with a confused view of how adults handle conflict. The older, perceptive children surely realized that some of the adults threw grown-up sized versions of temper tantrums when they didn’t get their way.

The children also probably went home thinking that black people and white people just don’t get along.

Twenty minutes in a crowded room on Thursday may have done more to harm the education of the children present than a single board decision this year will do to help them.

Are these the kind of leaders Concordia Parish elected? Is this the kind of example our leaders should be setting for our children?

The board is new. The members are intelligent. The next meeting is three weeks away. This group needs to sit back, see themselves through different eyes and get their act together fast or it is going to be a long, regressive year for education in Concordia Parish.

Julie Finley is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com.