DALTON, Ga. — The attorney for Dalton Public Schools said Wednesday that school board members did not violate the state Open Meetings Act in an executive session this week.

Government entities such as school boards, city councils and county commissions may meet in executive session, closed to the public and the media, for specific and limited reasons, including to discuss personnel, real estate and some legal matters.

Gainesville attorney J. Stanley Hawkins said he’d spoken to school board Chairman Rick Fromm both before and after the Monday meeting that included the closed executive session. He said he told Fromm before the meeting that if the school board members were discussing the superintendent and his future with the school system that he could see how that could lead to a wide-ranging discussion.

During the executive session, a reporter for The Daily Citizen who was sitting outside the back conference room on the third floor of City Hall could hear much of the discussions.

Much of the talk centered around the timeline for Superintendent Jim Hawkins — who was present for part of the executive session — to leave as head of the school system. The news that Jim Hawkins would be leaving had not been publicly announced. Hawkins discussed his own preference for a successor (a principal in the Dalton system) while some board members discussed their own favorite candidate (another principal in the Dalton system).

Stanley Hawkins, who did not attend the executive session, accused the reporter of eavesdropping on the session. He noted that board members refused to discuss what was said in the executive session and said he did not know how reliable the reporter’s account of the executive session was.

“But based on what I read (in The Daily Citizen), I did not see anything that gave me pause,” he said.

Board members also discussed the timing of when an announcement about the superintendent should be made and how the public would react as well as who would run for re-election this fall. One board member offered to resign if another board member agreed to resign from the board.

Stanley Hawkins said as with any discussion, executive session talks might sometimes veer off topic but there was no indication board members did not bring their discussion back to the superintendent.