Aliyya Swaby Photo
DeCola: Grade requirements would be un-American.
The student who sits on New Haven’s Board of Education may have to show up at school regularly — and may or may not have to maintain a C average.
Alders debated that proposition Monday night.
They debated what conditions, if any, to attach to the student representative’s position, or how much student input to include, at a joint City Hall meeting of the Board of Alders Aldermanic Affairs and Education committtees.
The meeting concerned how in general to set up new elections for the Board of Ed next year. In the wake of a charter revision vote last fall, the city will be changing its all mayorally-appointed eight-member Board of Ed to a “hybrid” board, with a mix of six mayoral appointees (including the mayor, as is the current practice), two popularly elected members, and a student member with no voting power.
At Monday’s meeting, the alders also unveiled a proposed map of the city halved into two 15-ward districts to vote for two elected members.
Headed by Wooster Square Alder Aaron Greenberg and Fair Haven Heights Alder Rosa Santana (pictured), the committees presented a preliminary proposal for the process of selecting student representatives. The charter requires the students be New Haven residents attending a city school and that they serve full two-year terms, in a staggered formation.
The proposal, currently in draft form, has to be finalized by November, in order to pass through the Board of Alders process by the end of the year, Santana said. “If we need another workshop before the next [Board of Alders] meeting, we will do that,” she said.
The committee members looked to other districts in the country that had implemented similar programs to draw on for the proposal, said Greenberg.
Finding The Student
The selection committee will solicit applications and choose six students, each from different schools, to run in the elections, according to the proposal. Two alders, two members of the Board of Education, two alder-selected community leaders and one person from the mayor’s staff will serve on the selection committee. Students will subsequently vote for the winner among the six; it’s unclear how that vote will take place.
Sue Weisselberg (pictured), the district’s head of wraparound services, suggested that committee members discuss the election process with students at the Citywide Student Council meeting Oct. 21. Schools hold elections for student councils in different ways, which could be useful for determining the terms of this election.
Metropolitan Business Academy, for example, uses teacher recommendations and community service experience to determine candidates for council elections, she said.
“I would like to get student voices on nuances not spelled out in the charter,” she said. One detail to be ironed out is how to ensure that Hillhouse and Wilbur Cross, the two largest high schools, do not “dominate” the student vote, she said.
No students participated in Monday night’s committee meeting.
The committee members debated the part of the proposal that requires applying sophomores to have a cumulative GPA of 2.0, which is a C grade.
Fair Haven Alder Michelle Perez said she thought the limit should be increased to 2.5. (A 3.0 is a B average.) Morris Cove Alder Salvatore DeCola argued the GPA minimum should not exist at all.
“Us putting a stipulation on a grade is not really what America is about,” he said adamantly, citing the fact that the U.S. president is not required to have a master’s degree. “I don’t think we should have any walls.”
A student who cannot read, for example, “may be strong enough to fight for the weak” and advocate strongly for his or her peers, DeCola said.
Hill Alder Latrice James, newest to the board, said in response that GPA is not necessarily the best qualifying factor, but suggested that a student’s attendance record serve as a replacement criterion.
Santana and Greenberg said that it might be best for the selection committee to determine the criteria it will use later in the process.
Map Quest
Near the end of the meeting, the committee showed an early version of a map of the city divided into two equal districts by a jagged line running east to west. The following wards would constitute the First District: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26.
Federal regulations require the districts to have equal populations, with only up to a five percent variance, said DeCola, who worked on the map. But this regulation means the racial makeup in each district does not mirror the other. The proposed District 1 contains more than twice the number of “Hispanic” people than District 2 and a fourth the number of “Asian” people, for example.
“There are surprisingly few ways to cut up the map and keep it geographically contiguous and fair, but not follow the senatorial map,” Greenberg said. “This is a pretty good option, but there is room to move within it.”
James and Beaver Hills Alder Richard Furlow said they might take a stab at re-redistricting.
The two new voting members of the Board of Education will be elected in November 2015 to begin the following January — one for a two-year term and the other for a four-year term. After the end of the two-year term in November 2017, the people will vote in a new member to serve a four-year term, ultimately staggering the terms for the members.
The exact process will be established once the redistricted map is approved by “outside legal opinion to meet federal guidelines,” hopefully by next month, Santana said.