The School Board has a new way of fostering cooperation: Agree with us — or else. by Chris Dovi
The measure passed unanimously during last week’s Richmond School Board meeting, slipping through the shadows and fog of a packed agenda otherwise dominated by a contentious budget fight.
The new provision says that board members must sign an agreement to “uphold and support the decisions of the majority of the board once a decision is made” and to “maintain fidelity” to the School Board in contact with the media.
Breaking the rules come with consequences: “should any one of us fail to live up to these commitments, [board members will] be held accountable by … the district’s chief legal counsel.” In other words, publicly disagreeing with the majority of the School Board, or Superintendent Yvonne Brandon, could be punishable by law.
The kind of punishment is unclear, as is the question of constitutionality. But its intent is crystal. In this new era of cooperation and accountability at City Hall, the ordinance signals a potentially dangerous new direction for the School Board still reeling from the aftershocks of recently departed Mayor L. Douglas Wilder.
“That’s the most disturbing thing I’ve heard,” says Don Harrison, a local journalist and frequent critic of Richmond school shenanigans. He slams the board’s actions on his blog, SaveRichmond.com: “Here is what puzzles me: I thought that the Richmond School Board represented us, the people… With this new policy, the school board seems to be confirming that it exists only to parrot the status quo.”
Add to it a push by Brandon to do away with City Council’s stronger oversight of the school budget (she wants a return to “lump-sum” budget approval), and her deflection of School Board members’ requests for more budget information, and it’s an ironic place for the School Board to find itself. Brandon referred request for comment to board Chairwoman Chandra Smith, who did not reply.
For the past four years, the School Board has been under attack by former Mayor Wilder and the business community, who wanted to go back to allowing City Council to appoint School Board members. But the public roundly rejected the idea, and replaced more than half of the School Board in the November election.
The message is that the people, not the politicians at City Hall, will hold the School Board accountable for managing and fixing public schools. But there’s always been a fundamental obstacle to the accountability debate: money.
“I do think that when you have an elected school board, certainly the expectation among the citizens [is that] the school board is responsible for schools,” says John Moeser, a University of Richmond urban studies professor and longtime observer of local politics. “But in the most fundamental way, the board is not.”
Moeser refers to the simple reality that the School Board depends on City Council for funding. The two-step process provides a buffer between the School Board and its voters, he says.
In other words, when things go well in schools, the board gets the credit. But when things go badly — especially when there are allegations of mismanagement — City Council is ultimately tasked with taking the checkbook away.
Or, as Earl McClenney, a professor of public administration at Virginia State University and former adviser to Gov. Tim Kaine, puts it: “If you don’t control the purse strings, then all you’re doing is talking.”
That disconnect led 26 business leaders to band together to sign a letter two years ago calling for a return to an appointed school board. While many people saw the ploy as a Wilder-directed power play, one of the letter’s chief architects, Dominion Resources chief Thomas Farrell, says the move would have made the School Board and City Council more accountable for their actions.
“The issue we identified in the letter is … that you find yourself in a situation where the School Board hires the superintendent and sets the policy, but does not have the final say over the budget, or the ability to raise the funds itself. … It makes for a difficult situation,” Farrell says. “At least if you have council members appointing the School Board members, there’s accountability there.”
Farrell has abandoned the call for an appointed board, but he remains active in his desire to help Richmond Public Schools progress. His leadership on the superintendent search committee ultimately led to Brandon’s hiring as superintendent.
“I have a great deal of faith in the School Board in knowing what was good for the school system at this time,” Farrell says.
But it’s difficult to see how threatening School Board members with legal action if they disagree — the measure passed last week — fosters more accountability.
Second District School Board member Kim Gray says she voted for the measure for procedural purposes. To formally challenge a School Board decision at a later date, a member must vote for it initially. But she thinks the effort’s out of whack with basic democratic principles — if not the law.
More fundamentally, it hamstrings the board, Gray says: “If new facts come forward later, we can’t even challenge our own consensus. It’s as if we voted that the world were flat and we could never come back and say it was round.”
That basic point is shared by Kirk T. Schroder, a former president of the State Board of Education.
“I’m totally against any muzzling of any school board member,” Schroder says. “I think there’s one thing to have a consensus-building exercise as opposed to anything that suggests the minority giving up their legal rights.”
Fundamental to those rights, Schroder says, is the board’s role as lord of its financial house. Muzzling the board’s dissenting minority seriously conflicts with the its ultimate responsibility, Schroder says — managing the budget.
That the muzzle decision arose after some School Board members asked for more information on Brandon’s proposed budget is equally disturbing, Schroder says. “I think any elected official should have the ability to gather any information they need to do their job,” he says.
In the case of Richmond — and other achievement-challenged urban school districts around the country — the information-gathering process is critical, says Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
“When you’re brought in to clean up a mess, whether it’s AIG or an urban school system, any responsible official is not going to be casual or trusting of the financial metrics,” Hess says. “The boards [of bankrupt corporations Tyco and Enron] were insufficiently skeptical and weren’t asking the tough questions.”
That’s School Board member Gray’s point.
“A third of a billion dollars is a lot of money for a third of our students not to be graduating,” she says of the school system’s $270 million budget, adding that board members’ responsibility is to improve that record by being better watchdogs.
Hess concurs: “I suspect Richmond taxpayers would rather have the board be too intrusive under those circumstances.”
Or as Carol A.O. Wolf — the vocal former School Board member many critics suspect of being the inspiration for the School Board’s new restraining order — puts it, “dissent is as American as the Fourth of July.” S
Monday, March 30, 2009 10:21:30 AM by Constant Reader
What about the board's LOUSY GRADUATION rate, the dismal DROPOUT rate, DIMINSIHING enrollment, LOUSY SAT scores, LOUSY middle schools, LOUSY athletic facilities ..... I would like to see a chart published showing these numbers and ask readers to decide what is more important "making" board members "behave" OR making the system do a better job of educating our children?
Monday, March 30, 2009 10:17:08 AM by Constant Reader
Basically, the "Communications Protocol" or "Rules of Engagement" attempts to codify "good manners" for the board to abide by. It also attempts to give the board and its counsel the so-called "legal" right to hold a member accountable if they dare to publicly disagree with the majority will. You cannot legislate loyalty. This is a public body not a private corporation. The same rules do not apply.
Is there such a document for City Council? The General Assembly? Congress? NO.
If the majority is so powerful and so right why does it need to codify a legal threat to a board member who would dissent? Don't they realize that people in the community see the board for the pathetic mess it is?
Some people on this seem to think that if they squash the critics that the schools will suddenly be better. WRONG. Everyone singing "Kumbaya" will not make it better. Only TRANSPARENCY and HARD WORK will.
If people want to see the document, all you have to do is go to the RPS website and find it. Oh, oops .... the RPS site is so difficult to navigate. Too bad.
The ISSUE is not about the "Protocol" or the "Rules of Engagement" in its totality the issue is that it expects board members to sign a document (there are only nine signature lines saying that they will "uphold" the will of the majority.
Doesn't this school board have more important things to worry about other than what board member is or is not staying loyal to the "party line"?
What about, says, the board's lousy graduation rate, the dismal ut rate, diminishing enrollment, lousy SAT scores, lousy middle schools, lousy athletic facilities ..... I would like to see a chart published showing these numbers and ask readers to decide what is more important "making" board members behave OR making the system do a better job educating our children?
The school boards"rules of engagement" is getting a lot of attention. I suggest a copy is printed in "Style" for the reader to see and decide if it violates anyones "rights".
----------------------------- Alumni
Saturday, March 28, 2009 4:06:08 PM by Carol A.O. Wolf
Mrs. Bridges,
To say that the board already has a line item budget, albeit one that is missing some of the "details" your colleagues, constituents and taxpayers have repeatedly asked to see, is akin to telling one's English teacher that you have read "A Tale of Two Cities" when, in actuality, all you did was read the CliffNotes.
I don't know how many times I need to state that the issue of concern here is NOT the so-called "Code of Ethics." The issue here is that the board is attempting to deny to any board member (and the citizens of this city who elected them), their Constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech. Further, it is threatening to have the dissenting member held accountable by the board's legal counsel.
The First Amendment is abundantly clear: "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW...ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH"
The Constitution's framers believed that freedom of inquiry and free expression were the hallmarks of a democratic society. But historically, at times of national stress — real or imagined — First Amendment rights come under enormous pressure. During the Red Scare of the early 1920s, thousands were deported for their political views.
During the McCarthy period, the infamous blacklist ruined lives and careers.
The First Amendment exists precisely to protect dissent from government suppression.
No one individual or entity has all the answers. Reasonable people should be able to disagree and work together. This doesn't mean someone has to essentially take a vow of silence.
But when the board to silence its own members by various punitive methods, you are crossing the line.
Persuasion, not coercion, is the solution. And, as Dwight Eisenhower once noted: "May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
Saturday, March 28, 2009 12:27:02 PM by Jonathan Mallard
Kim Bridges, busily commuinicating her heart out (as described by a collegue earlier), wants everyone to run to look at 6 sites so as to demonstrate that what RPS is actually DOING compares favorably with best practices elsewhere in the state and elsewhere in the country.
Well.
For starters, let’s note that half of the links have absolutely no means to actually run a school system and be accountable for their decisions. RPS seems to desire the latter.
For the other three, to actually look at what they accomplish speaks volumes:
Naperville District 203 graduates 96% of their students at a cost of $9881 each. Manassas awarded 50.85% advanced diplomas and 80.51% of students went to college in 2007 Virginia Beach awarded 50.89% advanced diplomas and 78.55% of students went to college in 2007.
You have to actually work to get those numbers as provided by the Virginia Department of Education.
In 2007, depending on how some of the data is manipulated, RPS graduated between 48 and 64% of its students, awarded 28.70% advanced diplomas and sent 66.05% to college at a cost of over $13,000 per student.
To paraphrase Dave Campbell of ESPN, please put up some numbers, then pop off.
Saturday, March 28, 2009 11:55:17 AM by Kim Bridges
Next school board meeting is Monday, April 6 at 6:00 at City Hall. Public input is welcome both prior to and at that meeting.
Saturday, March 28, 2009 11:25:03 AM by Anonymous
"we can fix it." -Then fix it!
Friday, March 27, 2009 3:52:56 PM by Kim Bridges
Please do look at the links I provided below. They are just a few samples of what hundreds of other school boards are doing. This was not an attempt to stifle dissent, free speech, or punish board members for doing their jobs. I'm not sure how many different ways I can say the same thing. If the statement was written in any way that it could be misconstrued, we can fix it.
Thursday, March 26, 2009 11:43:12 PM by Carol A.O. Wolf
Mrs. Bridges,
Amazing. Utterly astounding. The fact that every member of the current School Board failed to realize that "those words" in this "Communications Protocol" are in conflict with the basic guarantees of the First Amendment, is downright stupefying.
The issue here isn't about "Codes of Ethics." We already have one. We all swore oaths of office and promised to uphold and safeguard the guarantees of both the U.S. and Virginia State Constitutions.
The disturbing issue here concerns the board's willingness to attempt to restrict and violate the Constitutional right of any board member to speak on behalf of the citizens who elected them and to deny to those citizens to have their school board member speak to the issues of concern.
The Founding Fathers of this nation purposefully placed freedom of speech first . They also made a place at the table for the press and insisted that not only did citizens, but newspaper reporters, too, had a right to freedom of expression in order to help keep government honest.
And, as far as "best practices" go, I submit that the Courts across this nation have long respected the "Code of Ethics" known as the U.S. Constitution. I believe the Constitution trumps any "Code of Ethics" that someone dreams up.
RPS needs to stop blaming and punishing dissenting board members and members of the media for their troubles.
Rather than trying so hard to change "perceptions" about RPS and wasting energy attacking anyone or anybody who dares to disagree with you "a liar," I submit that it would be far better for the sake of the children in this city were the board to concern itself with the work at hand.
You don't like what people in the media and blogs have to say? Fine. But, that doesn't entitle you to berate and belittle those who hold differing views or to restrict their Constitutionally guaranteed right to express them.
I am not alone in this view. Judge Murray Gurfein, a Nixon appointee, understood that the press has a very important role in keeping this nation free. The following is excerpted from his Pentagon Papers opinion:
``A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know."
Similarly, U. S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan noted that the dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to uphold the bedrock principle that "government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."
Justice William O. Douglas pretty-much nailed it with this statement: "The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information."
And, Justice Hugo Black was always at his most succinct and eloquent when discussing the First Amendment: "Without deviation, without exception, without any ifs, buts, or whereases, freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
Thursday, March 26, 2009 9:31:06 AM by Kim Bridges
Codes of Ethics or Standards of Operation are common items for school boards across the nation. They are legal, constitutional, and encouraged as part of school board best practices. But the issue here is the wording of one line of the document that the Richmond school board approved. Dr. Brandon is correct that no board member raised concerns about this one line prior to the meeting. In fact, when I sent my recommended changes to the document prior to the meeting (she sent it out twice for our advance review), I did not suggest changes to that line either. I met with Don Harrison on Thursday, March 19, where he pointed out his concerns about the line. I called Dr. Brandon the same day to request a wording change in the approved document. Perhaps we can just replace the 19 words of the 700 word document with what other boards have done:
From Illinois: http://www.iasb.com/pdf/issue5.pdf and http://www.naperville203.org/board/BoardCodeofConduct.asp
From Vermont: http://www.vtvsba.org/streaming/code/code.html
From Nevada: http://www.nvasb.org/Publications/Boardmanship%20pdf/Board%20of%20Trustee%20Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf
And in our own state, from Manassas: http://manassas.k12.va.us/sb/meetings/2004-05/112304/VSBA%20Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf
From Virginia Beach: http://www.vbschools.com/schoolboard/code_of_ethics.pdf
Is there a willingness to "fix it?" Absolutely. My frustration about this issue and others recently reported in Style are that they are not being reported in context and in full.
FYI, the board did approve a line item budget, albeit one that wasn't in a format with a level of detail that some members want, so we've agreed to improve that too. The School Board Finance committee is meeting today at 1:00 on the 17th floor of City Hall to do just that. I hope anyone with questions and concerns, including Style, will attend that and any of our meetings.
Thursday, March 26, 2009 8:30:23 AM by Constant Reader
First of all, name-calling is really immature. The problem here is NOT Style Weekly, nor School Board members who dare to disagree.
The problem is that we have people sitting on this school board who either do not understand their Oaths of Office, in which they promised to uphold both the U.S. and Virginia State Constitutions, or have chosen not to care about protecting the rights and responsibilities contained in those documents.
Their cavalier attitude is reminiscent of words uttered by former President George W. Bush: "I don’t give a [censored]. I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way. ... Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!"
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 11:44:27 PM by Anonymous
When will this paper learn the difference between a news story and an editorial? Typical for Style to totally mischaracterize the measure for its own purposes. Anyone who attended the meeting and who understands FREE SPEECH knows that the measure was not designed to muzzle dissent, but to make undermining progress verbotten. The Wolfs and Malones of the world have a long history breaking every rule and telling any lie after losing a vote. They relied on the other members fear of conflict (and Style's addiction to controversy) to allow them to do so with impugnity. Now when a Board UNANIMOUSLY decides to limit the fighting to BEFORE the vote, the story gets twisted. Who needs the "I hope they fail" Limbaugh-esque approach?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 6:33:46 PM by Constant Reader
Just a couple of rhetorical questions ..... Did the board discuss Sunshine Week before or after it approved the budget without any line-item details?
Will this "transparency" you mentioned arrive with "all deliberate speed" the way boards before you and the one you sit on now have brought about an end to "separate and not equal" ......
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 3:14:00 PM by Carol A.O. Wolf
Mrs. Bridges,
Allow me to set the record straight. When I met with the Superintendent at 8:30 a.m. on March 20th to discuss this matter, she said that NO ONE on the board had raised this concern. In fact, she seemed quite surprised when I raised the concern.
Dr. Brandon further emphasized that the "intent" was not to restrain anyone's rights as much as it was an effort to put some "Rules of Engagement" in place.
I weighed in and urged her to re-think this given that the School Board does not need to get caught up in yet another legal mess. Our nation was founded by dissenters. The U.S. Supreme Court issues both "Majority" opinions and "Dissenting" opinions.
For more information, paste this site into your web browser.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 8:09:11 AM by Kim Bridges
When Don Harrison suggested to me last week that the line might be interpreted as having the intent to suppress free speech, I suggested to the superintendent that we amend it and she readily agreed. No one wants a restraining order on communication as the article asserts. (And as Don's a 1st District constituent, I'm accountable to him!)
Having standards of board operations is a fairly regular practicethis document was crafted at our training on effective school board operations. We also approved the communication protocols with the superintendent to clarify the best way to get information from the board to administration and vice versa. That's on the school board website at http://www.richmond.k12.va.us/schoolboardnew/index.htm
At the same meeting, we also had an announcement about Sunshine Week and discussed increasing the transparency of RPS finances. The new Finance Chair is working with her committee on a new budget and financial reporting structure as a means to doing that. We're going to increase our financial reporting from quarterly to monthly as a start.
In the school board and superintendent's short time together, we have committed to increasing transparency, fiscal oversight, and effective communication with all stakeholders. There's much work to be done to make that commitment a reality. I really wish Style would send a reporter to actually cover the meetings where this work is being done it would give your readers a better sense of the issues to see them presented fully and in context.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 8:05:16 PM by jason C
This is the most moronic thing I have heard in years. If Steve Johnson, Carol Wolf and Reggie Malone were on this board, they would have handed these board members their hat and kicked them out the door. Any school board member that signs this agreement should be removed from office immediately...who do you represent people, the system or the public...figure it out.
To further the record, any comments by me in this article were to questions about my views regarding the general conduct of school boards and my past experience in that regard. My comments were not in response to any specific proposals related to the Richmond School Board. I have not seen nor am I aware of the contents of the specific proposal discussed in this article. Thank you, Kirk T. Schroder
