Reforming the Politics of the Montclair School District

Montclair needs education reform. The town needs to improve the way education is organized and delivered; and the town needs to improve the politics of leadership in education.

The first issue of reform, organizing and delivering education, has recently centered on the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers (PARCC)-related assessment of achievement according to the implementation and use of CCSSI. This is a substantial issue and needs to be made part of an open and inclusive discussion.

The discussion here addresses only the second issue: the reform of the politics of education in Montclair in order to promote transparency and trust in a more fully democratic system.

For years the town’s people have complained about the governance of the Montclair School District. They have complained that there was not enough change or that there was too much change. They have complained that the School Superintendent, the present one or the past one, was not forthright or honest, was not transparent, spent too much or too little of the taxpayer dollars, or did not present the community with a true picture of education (its achievements and failures).

They have also complained about the Montclair Board of Education (MBoE), about the way members are appointed, about their backgrounds and competencies, and about the way they function. Others have praised past and/or present boards of education in the town, content with their leadership and trusting their decisions. Some have felt that the MBoE had a good working relationship with the past or present School Superintendent, and some have felt that the MBoE did not hold the School Superintendent sufficiently accountable.

In the past the town’s people have debated if it would be better to have an elected MBoE instead of the currently appointed (by the mayor and confirmed by the town council) MBoE. Some people felt that an elected MBoE would be more appropriately chosen according to competencies, that this would ensure a better representation of the community in the MBoE, and that it would lead to a certain degree of accountability by the MBoE membership. Others believe that an elected MBoE would lead to a politicization of education in the town and also threaten education by giving too large a voice to taxpayers with no children in the school district. This was put to a vote not so long ago and the town decided to continue with an appointment system.

Today there is a crisis in the politics of education in Montclair to the extent that the mayor and the town council have seen the need to rearrange the agenda of their upcoming meeting to inquire into some of the practices of the current MBoE.

Perhaps there is no need to change the basic system of appointing the MBoE members. But within that system, certain things could be done that would improve the democratic process as well as further transparency and accountability.

Firstly, for each open position on the MBoE, the mayor should publish well in advance an open public call for applicants. The call should include the fields of background/expertise and/or experience being sought for that position, and a listing of the information and documents to be submitted. All of the applications should be made available in advance on the town’s website, and the mayor should then be allowed to choose the candidate s/he finds best and put this forward to the Town Council with a statement supporting her/his proposed candidate.

The MBoE should also reform its meeting practices. All meetings should begin with open sessions (as happens in other towns), and all discussions and decisions taken as well as discussions with the community, prior to entering into any closed/executive sessions. Only the remaining agenda items (if any) should then be discussed in closed session, and the decisions taken in open session following that. Closed/executive sessions need to be kept to an absolute minimum and they should never be used to discuss any point that belongs in an open session.

The MBoE should remove the School Superintendent and the BoE attorney from sitting in front of the room among the board members. It should end the practice of the School Superintendent acting as a MBoE member, in the MBoE meetings as well as before by issuing invitations or writing up the MBoE meetings in her/his newsletters. The MBoE should cease being a showcase for the School Superintendent to sell her positions to the community with PowerPoint and rehearsed presentations from staff and teachers. The School Superintendent should be called upon to provide a report of her activities, and she should be openly challenged on those activities.

The MBoE should adopt a public comment session where, as it does today, allow for public remarks from the audience. In addition, within a week prior to any meeting (or 24 hours prior to a special meeting), the MBoE should allow for the submission of written questions and those questions should be responded to by the MBoE during the meeting in open session. Both the questions and the responses should be recorded in the minutes of the meeting.

In addition, the MBoE’s agenda should make room for reports from teachers and their union, parent groups and student groups as well as from independent members of the community. There needs to be a broader discussion on all issues pertaining to the schools from a wide variety of viewpoints. The MBoE needs to end the practice of allowing the viewpoint of one person to dominate the discussion.

Finally, the mayor and the town council should develop a clear set of rules and procedures for challenging MBoE practices (collectively and individually), as well as for terminating membership (collectively and individually).

There will always be debate and conflict in a town regarding education. Making progress and making the best decisions relies on having strong democratic processes and clear systems of transparent accountability. The MBoE must be seen to be regularly holding the School Superintendent accountable, and the community must feel that it has a voice in the education of the town’s children as well as a MBoE that is accountable and can be challenged when things go wrong.