State Report On School Boards:
Let The Parents Keep Their Voice

By Angela Montefinise

The State Task Force on Education Governance Reform released its long-awaited plan for replacing school boards this month, with recommendations that it believes would make parents partners in the education process, keep local school governance in tact and give parents of special education students their first ever local board.

The Task Force was set up as part of last year’s school governance legislation, which dismantled the Board of Education, created the New York City Department of Education and gave Mayor Michael Bloomberg the right to appoint members to a new education panel.

The June legislation also stated that community school boards would be dismantled on June 30, 2003. The Task Force was formed to determine how to replace them.

Fifty hours of public testimony later, the Task Force presented its recommendations, which follow the overall principles of accountability, accessibility and partnership.

The plan will now be voted on by the State Legislature, presented to the Governor and sent to the Justice Department for approval. The State Legislature can amend the proposal before it votes on it.

If the recommendations are passed by June 30, the City’s 32 school boards will be history, and a new system of local boards with parents as key members will take over.

The 20-member Task Force – co-chaired by State Assemblyman Steve Sanders and former Queens Board of Education member Terri Thomson – held public hearings in each borough and accepted written testimony over the past year to decide how to replace School Boards.

Mayor Bloomberg and Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein consolidated the City’s 32 community school districts into 10 “instructional divisions” early this year. Source: Department of Education

According to Thomson, the overriding feeling was “parents wanted a role.”

“The significance of this plan is, really for the first time, parents will have a significant role,”Thomson said. “What we’ve heard throughout the City, and especially in Queens, is that parents want to be partners and the community wants to play a significant role in supporting the school system. In a system of 1.2 million children, there needs to be a recognizable local governance system.”

The new system recommended by the Task Force includes 32 elected Community District Education Councils, each with eight parent members, two business, community or civic members appointed by the Borough President and one high school senior appointed by the district superintendent.

At least one of the parent members, the report states, will have a child with special needs.

The new boards would carry out all of the responsibilities of current boards, as well as hold monthly meetings with the district superintendent, do an annual evaluation of the Chancellor, handle operating budget questions, provide input during collective bargaining sessions impacting the school system, be responsible for zoning issues, work on district safety issues, work with elected officials, and have other responsibilities.

The boards would elect their own officers, according to the report, which does not specify how board members would be elected.

It does state, however, that the elections will only be open to parents, and that parents are only permitted to vote in one district.

Thomson said, “District level boards are important, this is an enormous school system, the largest of its kind. It’s a long way from the parent to the chancellor.”

District 75, the City’s special education district, has never been represented by a school board. It’s a situation that the Task Force wants to change.

The recommendation creates an 11-member Special District Board, which includes eight parents from the district, including at least one from each borough.

It will also include one high school student appointed by the superintendent, and two business or civic members with knowledge of special education appointed by the City Council. Each member will serve two years. 

Thomson said parent activists are “elated” about the possible formation of the new board, and said, “These people never had a voice. This district had its own name and its own superintendent, but never its own board. Now, for the first time, parents will have a place to go.”

Woodhaven resident Patricia Cruz, president of the President’s Council of District 75, has a nine-year-old son in special education

“I live in District 27, my son goes to school in a District 26 school in a program run by District 75. That’s a major problem,” Cruz said. “I remember my district slamming the door in my face when it was time for my son to enter kindergarten and refer me somewhere else. There is such discrimination against our kids in these schools. There’s no one fighting for us. Now we’ll have a voice.”

The Task Force also recommended that School Leadership Team formation change. Currently, Thomson said, school leadership teams are comprised of half staff, half parents.

The recommendation states that the leadership team should be “50 percent plus one parents,” Thomson said. She added, “Parents are the most important stakeholders in the education system, and the leadership teams should reflect that.”

School leadership teams were created in every school in 1996, and bring parents, teachers and administrators together to perform three vital functions – develop each school’s Comprehensive Educational Plan, align the school budget to that plan and evaluate the quality of their educational programs.

Throughout the Task Force’s report, it refers to 32 community school districts, and states that local government affiliated with each district is necessary. The report states that one of the Task Force’s guiding principles was  “The importance of a local District level board to represent local needs in a system that can be distant and unapproachable because of its size.”

Bloomberg and School Chancellor Joel Klein came out with a plan this January, however, that will in effect eliminate the 32 school districts, and create 10 citywide “instructional divisions,” each with its own superintendent.

In Queens, there will be three divisions – Division 3 will include current Districts 25, 26, 28 and 29, Division 4 will include current Districts 24 and 30, and Division 5 will include current District 27 and two Brooklyn districts.

There has been outcry against the plan, including claims that it is illegal because State law mandates that there must be at least 30 school districts in the City.

Community Board 11 formed a committee to fight the plan on the basis that it is not legal, and Committee Chairman Melvyn Meer said, “This is a matter of numbers. This new district will have 130,000 kids. The largest school district outside of New York is in Buffalo, and it only has 40,000 kids. What they’re proposing is unmanageable.”

The Task Force’s plan answers those concerns, with Thomson saying, “By law, the 32 districts must stay. The lines will still be in tact. It’s just that one superintendent will cover more than one district . . . Our recommendation does not conflict with that. There would be local governance within each district.”

She added, “Our mandate was to create a system to replace school boards. The plan for instructional divisions is a separate thing. Our plan can be adapted to that.”

Meer disagrees, and said that having 32 parent councils does not make each section a district. He pointed to State law, which defines a district as an area represented by a superintendent.

“A district has a superintendent with an office with a staff, Meer said. “The Mayor can give us as many parent councils as he wants, that doesn’t make us a district.”

Although the report was still circulating through the system at presstime, and hadn’t been seen by many school board members, State Senator Frank Padavan had seen it.

“I support the recommendations and goals established by the Task Force, especially those regarding the importance of providing for meaningful participation by parents and maintaining the integrity and boundaries of the existing 32 school districts,” Padavan said.

Meer, however, is still not convinced that the plan will work, and said, “A superintendent is who parents call when there’s a problem that cannot be solved by their principal. Under this new system, with or without parent councils, one office is going to be inundated with phone calls, and nothing will get done.”

Meer said parents across the borough are afraid that the school system will become inaccessible, and said Community Board 11 and the PTA Presidents Council of District 26 are holding a forum to save their district at 7 p.m. on March 16 at Middle School 158 in Bayside. The forum will feature Deputy Mayor of Education Dennis Walcott, local elected officials and parents.

“The Mayor wants to create superdistricts,” Meer said. “That is not provided for in the law nor in [the Task Force] report. That has to be addressed.”

Thomson thinks the new boards will keep local governance in tact, and said she hopes that the legislature moves quickly, because if nothing is in place by June 30, the boards will remain for another year.

Thomson said there was mixed reaction to the performance of the boards during the public hearings, and said, “I hope the legislature moves quickly so we can get something new in place and move forward.”