Melissa Bailey Photos
Isaiah Lee (L), Peggy Moore.
Wilbur Cross High School Principal Peggy Moore gave students a parting lesson in democracy as the academic year came to a close: After an outspoken junior won an election, she added new rules and nullified the results.
The student council at Wilbur Cross High School held the election on June 9. When students tallied the 29 votes, they concluded Isaiah Lee had edged out his opposition to become next year’s president of the student body.
The next day, Principal Moore declared the election “null and void” because students failed to follow the rules. She said she will not allow another election to take place before next fall.
Moore gave six reasons for her decision — reasons that amounted to new rules that were never disclosed before the vote, according to two student leaders. School administrators claim at least two of the rules were made clear in advance of the vote.
The incident was the second time this year that Moore has put her foot down on the activities of student organizers at the city’s largest high school. Moore took over in the fall as principal of the 1,466-student comprehensive school on East Rock’s Mitchell Drive.
Under her watch, the student Political Action Club was disbanded after holding a public demonstration advocating for more textbooks and resources for kids. Moore said the club dissolved because the student advisor no longer wished to participate. That advisor, calculus teacher Barry Kleinfeld, has declined comment to the Independent, and no other adult has stepped in to replace him. Students marched to the New Haven Green after Moore denied them permission to hold the event on school grounds.
Thomas MacMillan Photo
The latest incident makes it harder for students’ voices to be heard, said James Doss-Gollin (pictured), vice president of the student council.
“I know it’s hard for a new principal in a new school, and that everyone’s going to have their own style of dealing with students, but we had the political action club shut down earlier this year … and now we’re having the student council left without leadership for next year,” Doss-Gollin said.
“Students really want to have a voice” on education issues, especially in light of the citywide school reform effort, he said. “Without any elected student government, it’s going to be challenging for students to make sure they’re heard.”
Both run-ins with the principal involve a similar group of politically active students, including Isaiah Lee.
Lee, a junior, burst onto the citywide political scene on the day of that March 30 protest when he camped outside the mayor’s office with a megaphone and refused to leave until he met “the main man.” (The meeting later took place.) He later took stage during a union solidarity rally, organized fellow students behind a threatened boycott of standardized tests, and has lately been pushing for student representation on the city school board.
He took part in that activism as an outsider, through a new grassroots student group he started, New Haven Students for Change. His attempt to become president of the establishment-approved student government caused some excitement at Cross. Lee was one of four candidates who ran for president of the student body.
“This was our most controversial election in years,” said Lea Winter, the student council president for the past three years. “There was a lot of competition. There were a lot of candidates who were very strong.”
Winter, who’s scheduled to give a valedictorian speech at Cross’s graduation Thursday, is leaving her post at Cross to become a freshman at Yale University.
“Null And Void”
The election was overseen by Doss-Gollin, another graduating senior who’s on his way to Yale. In phone interviews Tuesday, Doss-Gollin and Winter recounted how students picked new leaders for next year — then had their vote overruled by the powers that be.
Elections at Cross are held a little differently each year, depending on the wishes of the student body. There have been varying numbers of vice presidents. Some elections have been open to the whole student body, others restricted to the student council.
At the outset of this month’s election, Moore told students to run the the vote based on a student council constitution written in 1979. Students dusted it off. It turned out to offer little guidance over how the elections should be run except to say that only student council members can vote.
Students compiled a list of candidates. They held a debate. They rounded up the members of the student council for a vote. On Thursday, June 9, council leaders gathered in a conference room a couple of doors down from the principal’s office.
Winter said she poked her head in to see Principal Moore.
“Hi, here’s a copy of our ballot. We’re holding an election in the conference room,” Winter said she told Moore.
Students collected 29 ballots. They tallied them up. They concluded Isaiah Lee had squeaked out a win for president, beating Erin Cofrancesco 15 to 14, according to Winter. They also elected Alexandra Torresquintero as vice president, Lily Engbith as secretary, and freshman Max Martin as treasurer.
The next day Winter received an email from the student council advisor, history and civics teacher Al Meadows.
“Per the principal that election results are hereby null and void,” Meadows announced in the email.
The rest of the email follows:
Reasons given
— No member of the faculty present (specially me)
— academic standings of those running
— academic standings of those voting
— election tally and who voted
— past practice and protocol
— notifications to principal and faculty advisor prior to any election
Al Meadows
Sent from my iPhone
The list came as a surprise to the students.
“We didn’t find out about these rules until after the results came out,” Doss-Gollin said. “None of those rules were written in the constitution.”
“New Rules”
They amounted to “new rules,” Winter agreed.
Winter said students were never told that the advisor has to be in the room at the time of the vote.
Winter said students have typically held elections in Meadows’ room, and he was usually present because he happened to be there. She said his room was unavailable on June 9. She said students advised him they would be holding the election elsewhere. Winter said voting was overseen by three seniors — two of whom are legal adults over the age of 18.
“I think that there could be a little bit more trust given to the students,” she said.
In an interview Tuesday, Meadows acknowledged he did know there was an election in the school, but he was unable to attend. He said in the past seven years he has served as advisor to the student council, he has always been present for elections. The rule isn’t written in the constitution, but it’s a long-standing practice that students should have been aware of, he said.
Meadows said he does trust Lea and her classmates to count the vote.
But he raised other problems with the process. Meadows said he asked all the candidates to come see him prior to the vote. “I need to know everyone who’s running.” He said all but one did so. “Isaiah never came to see me, because Isaiah wants to do things his way.”
Meadows acknowledged Isaiah was a controversial pick for president: “He won, and that has colored some things for some people.” But he said Lee was not the reason for the nullification — it came down to a failure to follow the rules.
Meadows said he made clear to students two weeks before the election that the principal would like to see a protocol by which the elections would be run.
“Ms. Moore being new, and not knowing” about how elections were run at Cross, had requested the protocol, he said. “I asked the students to turn in a protocol. It never happened.”
Meadows said if the decision were up to him, he would have discussed the glitches in the process with the students before determining how to proceed.
“Would I have null and voided it? I would have talked to the kids,” Meadows said. “I would have said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ I trust those kids.”
Melissa Bailey Photo
In an interview Tuesday, Moore was asked her reasons for voiding the election results.
“There are some criteria that have to be met,” she replied. “It includes students’ grades, GPA,” and “discipline reports.” She said she could not discuss the matter further due to confidentiality reasons.
Lee, who takes honors and Advanced Placement classes, said he was not made aware of any requirement for a candidate’s GPA, nor does he believe that he would fail any such requirement.
“I was certainly distracted by many of the things I was involved with [this year], but at the same time, my grades are certainly up to par,” he said.
Moore also said students also broke the rules by failing to have an advisor present for the vote.
Doss-Gollin said that students are willing to work with the new rules — if they can figure out what they are. However, after meeting with the principal, they were unable to determine an election protocol that Moore would consider valid.
Moore said with graduation taking place this Thursday, she hasn’t had time to determine proper rules for another election.
“This whole student council election is least important right now,” Moore said. “Right now it is extremely important to make sure students are ready for graduation.” She said she would “probably” settle the question of the election protocol before the end of the year, “but at this time I am not going to entertain that idea or expend much energy right now.” She said she is focusing on the positive changes to the graduation rate, not the “negativity from a small group of students.”
Moore referred further comment to Chris Hoffman, the spokesman for the public schools.
Hoffman said the nullification had nothing to do with any single student. Rather it was the result of two rules being broken — an election protocol was not submitted before the vote, and the advisor was not present. Hoffman said students will have to wait until September to sort out the matter.
“There’s going to have to be a new election in the fall. There’s just not time,” Hoffman said.
Meadows said the additional reasons cited in his email — in particular, the criteria that the academic standings of each candidate and voter be vetted — came from Ms. Moore. He said academic vetting would be a new rule for student elections, and that he understood Moore was suggesting it for future elections, not as a retroactive rule for the past election.
Lee said he campaigned on three issues: Getting student representation on the city school board, reforming the school discipline code, and school sanitation.
“Our bathrooms have had no soap in the last three months,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
Despite his reputation as a radical, Lee said he aims to work together with the superintendent and principal on those issues. While he believes he won the election, he said he will abide by the principal’s determination.
“I’ll respect whatever she decides. I think I would be a great president, but if she feels that I would not be,” Lee said, he won’t put up a fight.
Shameful! Absolutely Shameful!!! What are we teaching our children, Chinese style politics? If you don't like the results, change the rules and void the election. Now that I think of it, it isn't much different from the Board of Aldermen. Stifle debate, stretch the truth, ignore the rules.
Shameful!