Melissa Bailey File Photos
Union prez Cicarella and Harp.
Declaring it seeks to prevent a “conflict of interest,” the teachers union is calling on Mayor Toni Harp to make sure her next appointment to the school board doesn’t have ties to charter schools.
Union President Dave Cicarella and the executive team of the New Haven Federation of Teachers (NHFT) made that request in a letter sent this week to Mayor Harp.
The letter comes as Harp prepares to fill a vacancy on the school board. The board has eight members: Harp and seven mayoral appointees, who serve four-year terms. One of the eight spots opened up last fall, when Liz Torres stepped down because she moved to West Haven. (New Haven school board members must live in town.) The outgoing mayor, John DeStefano Jr, left the appointment for Harp to make.
The appointment must be approved by the Board of Alders. Harp said she has not yet chosen a candidate.
In its letter, the NHFT noted that two of the seven members of the school board have a “strong affiliation” to charter schools. Che Dawson is the director of operations for Amistad Academy Elementary School, a New Haven charter school in the Achievement First network. And Alex Johnston is the former CEO of ConnCAN, a pro-charter education advocacy organization.
That’s too many charter advocates for a public district school board, the NHFT argued.
“I am writing to express my concern with the current balance of the Board,” the letter reads, “and to request that you do not add to that imbalance with your upcoming appointment.”
The union executive board sent that letter to Harp. It also created a form letter that other teachers can sign and send to Harp.
The NHFT noted that teachers and administrators who work for New Haven district public schools — and even parents who receive a stipend from the district for helping out with a field trip — are “forbidden by statute from serving on the Board.” The union argued that charter school employees should be forbidden from serving on the board, too.
“We do not believe that the Charter school representatives, who have embraced an alternate system of education, speak for the students we serve in the public schools as knowledgeably or with as much investment as those who have a demonstrated commitment to our local public school system,” the NHFT charged.
“We ask that you give us an appointee whose heart is with our struggle as we continue to serve the whole population of the city of New Haven,” the union concluded.
“They don’t choose. I do,” replied Mayor Harp in a recent interview. But “I don’t think they need to worry,” she quickly added.
Harp said she isn’t looking for someone with a particular ideology, but “someone that is interested in education.” That person will probably be a Hispanic person who is a Republican or unaffiliated with a political party, she said. That’s because the person who stepped down, Torres, was Hispanic, and Harp aims to keep a racial balance on the board.
The NHFT also penned a letter to New Haven state Sen. Martin Looney, the Senate majority leader, asking for a change in state statute to prohibit charter school employees from serving on public school district boards of education.
In the letter, the NHFT cites a current state law prohibiting Board of Education employees from serving on their school board. The law is meant to prohibit teachers or administrators from voting on matters that directly affect their own jobs.
“I understand your concern regarding the governance of the employees,” the NHFT wrote. “I am, however, deeply concerned that you have not placed the same restriction on employees of the local state charter schools. These schools are not answerable to the Board on any level, but are in direct competition with local public schools on many levels.”
“I hope that this inequity was an oversight, that you will agree that local charter school employees should not be overseeing the daily operation, including calendar, salary, curriculum, sites, safety, etc. of our local public schools,” the union wrote. “At the very least, it is a conflict of interest.”
“We hope that you will agree that the purpose of local Boards would be much better served if the Board was comprised of local community members with a vested interest in the public schools which serve all of our city’s children,” the NHFT wrote.
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Dawson.
Reached Thursday, Dawson denied any conflict between his position at Achievement First and his role on the school board. He has served on the school board since December of 2012.
“I’m not clear what the conflict of interest is,” Dawson said. “I don’t make any decision to vote on anything that impacts the school at which I work.”
“I can hear the concern” about having too many charter advocates on the board, “but I don’t see any evidence” of a conflict of interest.
“I haven’t done anything that was either pro or against charters” in his role on the board, he said.
If someone could point to a particular vote where he has helped charters and hurt New Haven schools, that would be one thing, Dawson said. But “just to say I work at a charter isn’t enough for me.”
Melissa Bailey File Photo
Johnston (pictured) left ConnCAN in 2011. He said he is currently “self-employed as a consultant and philanthropic advisor focused on education policy”; he said he does not contract with any New Haven charter schools.
Public Hearing Offered
In its letter, the NHFT asked Looney to “address this issue in the current legislative session.”
The letter was sent Monday, just two days before the session ended.
Looney spokesman Adam Joseph said the NHFT’s request could not be addressed this session, but Looney will review the idea and hold a public hearing on it next legislative session. Looney would be “very interested in hearing testimony” on the matter and does not have a stance at this point, Joseph said.
State Sen. Gary Holder-Winfield (pictured), who has supported charter schools as part of a nuanced outlook on school reform, agreed with the NHFT’s proposal about barring charter employees from the public district school board.
“Suppose a teacher in a traditional public school can’t serve” on the board, he said — then a teacher in a charter school shouldn’t be able to serve on the board either.
“If charter schools are public schools,” Holder-Winfield argued, “why would you have a rule that treats one public school different than another public school?”
Having charter employees on the New Haven school board gives fodder to those who believe that charter schools are “taking control of the public schools to destroy us,” Holder-Winfield said.
He said New Haven should “do everything possible” to “eliminate those things that would make people believe that.”
In the long term, the school board plans to replace two of its appointed members with elected members. According to the rules of a new city charter approved by voters in November, the city will be divided into two voting districts. Candidates will run for two elected school board seats in an election in November of 2015.
Three board members — Johnston, Mike Nast and Susan Samuels — have terms that expire at the end of 2015. Unless someone resigns, Harp will have to choose to not reappoint two of those three people, so that seats open up for the elected positions.