Until the moment LBI Consolidated Board of Education President William Fenimore stopped the second public comment period to announce he received a $3 million written offer from Surf City officials to purchase the Ethel A. Jacobsen Elementary School that afternoon, the Nov. 19 regularly scheduled meeting could only be described as mundane.

All of that was erased in a flash as board members, district professionals and the public struggled with feelings of being ambushed by the news, in the wake of…