New Ed Board Battle Brews

After receiving a hand-delivered letter from the mayor stating she is no longer a Board of Education member, Alicia Caraballo stayed away from a school dedication Sunday. But she said she plans to show up in public Monday night — to take what she still considers her seat.

A police officer showed up at Caraballo’s home Friday to deliver the letter.

“Dear Ms. Caraballo,” the letter began.

“As you are aware your term as a mayoral appointee to the ​‘Board of Education’ expired on September 15, 2016.

“I am writing to inform you that I will not be reappointing you to this Board. However, I want to thank you for your years of service and for having made a significant contribution to the balanced growth and development of the City of New Haven.

“Very truly yours,

“Toni N. Harp

“Mayor.”

That prompted a new round of contentious emails and conversations this weekend from members of the Board of Ed. Caraballo and her defenders criticized the mayor’s letter — and argued she has no authority to remove Caraballo.

Caraballo had been scheduled to represent the board at a formal dedication Sunday afternoon of the new $44 million home for New Haven Academy high school at Bradley and Orange streets.

She chose to stay home; the board wasn’t represented at the event.

Caraballo said she didn’t want her presence to detract from the event. ​“I was going to go … I was looking forward to it,” she said. ​“I graduated from Saint Mary’s in 1971.” The rebuilt New Haven Academy building originally housed the St. Mary’s parochial school.

Monday night the Board of Education holds its next biweekly meeting. Caraballo said she intends to attend, because she still considers herself a board member.

She cited an agreement the Board of Alders and Board of Education reached this past March to head off a lawsuit over the number of members on the ed board after the board gained two new elected members. (It used to be fully appointed by the mayor until voters approved a charter change to a hybrid board.) Under the agreement, the ed board — which had eight members but under the new charter should have seven — would keep all eight members on board through 2016 until two members’ terms expire. But members would take turns sitting out each meeting so only seven could vote.

Also, her supporters on the board noted that the charter revision stated that ​“appointed members shall remain in office subject to their term of four (4) years; however, said terms shall be extended until 11:59:59 PM on December 31st of the final year of the respective term.”

In an interview Sunday, Harp said that the deal struck with the alders concerned a different ed board member, Daisy Gonzalez, whom they were trying to remove from office.

She said Caraballo’s term expired Sept. 15, and argued that the agreement and charter change did not affect that.

“That agreement had to do with whether there will always be eight [members]. It didn’t take into consideration that some folks will go off [the board] on Sept. 15,” Harp said. ​“It just make sense to have seven.”

Meanwhile, she subsequently argued during an appearance on WNHH radio’s ​“Mayor Monday” program that the charter language concerned terms in 2015, not 2016.

Board member Michael Nast’s term also ended Sept. 15. Harp said she has decided to extend his term through December while she goes through the process of choosing a successor, who must be approved by the alders. ​“It’s going to take that long to get someone to take his place.”

She said that Caraballo’s seat will no longer exist, so there was no reason to keep her on the board. While Nast’s seat still will, so she wanted to keep him there for now to have all seven members on the board.

“Please cite the legal justification for your action in removing me from the Board?” Caraballo wrote to Harp in an email message. ​“I recall the agreement we reached in March, 2016 with the Board of Alders to rotate the appointed BOE members until the end of the year (December, 2016) to allow all current 8 members to continue to serve until Mr. Nast and my term end the end of this year.

“I do not recall any differences in Mayoral appointments nor any decisions prior to the schedule presented as part of the legal agreement. Also, were you acting in your capacity as Mayor or Board President and also why a Police Officer was used to deliver the letter. Please know that the officer rang the first floor and my granddaughter (15 years old and her sister who is 12) were scared to death when the police officer asked to speak to me they we are not accustomed to have the police show up at our door unless there is legal cause for such a visit which in our home has never happened.”

“She is not to be seated tomorrow,” Harp told the Independent. ​“I would expect she will respect the fact that her term has expired.”

Another board member, Ed Joyner, wrote to Harp that he ​“can only believe it is a hoax. The Toni Harp I know would never stoop to this level.”

Joyner and Caraballo are among Board of Ed members who have pushed in recent months to get rid of schools Superintendent Garth Harries. Mayor Harp has sought to keep him in the job. The board hired an attorney who is currently negotiating with Harries’ attorney on a deal to pay him money to leave his post this fall rather than when his contract expires in June 2018.

It was unclear on Sunday how this latest flare-up will affect those discussions. Some clues may emerge when the board convenes Monday night, though, as usual, probably not in the public view.

The behind-the-scenes wrangling was not mentioned at Sunday’s New Haven Academy event, a milestone in a school that started with cramped quarters in 2003 and has grown to be one of the jewels in the city system. (Read more about it here.)

Harries did pay homage to the empty Board of Ed chair from the stage during formal remarks inside the school’s new gymnasium.

“Alicia Caraballo couldn’t be here,” he told the crowd. ​“But they are important advocates of not just the school construction program but the education that takes place inside the classrooms.”