nothin Torre Tops Ed Board Attendance Roster | New Haven Independent

Torre Tops Ed Board Attendance Roster

Melissa Bailey File Photos

Torre, at left: 26 for 26 in 2014.

Johnston: 20 for 26.

If a school principal calculated the New Haven’s Board of Ed attendance records, President Carlos Torre would get a gold star for showing up to class. Alex Johnston would advance to the next grade, but with a needs improvement” warning.

A review of 2014 attendance shows that — unlike when the Independent took attendance before the launch of the district’s school change” initiative — board members are consistently showing up for work.

The chart below lays out the attendance records day by day, with a “✓” representing presence and the A” representing an absence. Gold-star winner Torre attended all 26 full board meetings of 2014.

I hadn’t even realized,” he said, when asked for comment. It’s not something I think about. I have it on my calendar.”

Board member Johnston missed the most meetings — six total — and phoned in for one meeting, putting his attendance record at 77 percent.

Aliyya Swaby

“Occasionally I travel for work,” said Johnston, who chairs the board of the Policy Innovators in Education Network. He said he prioritizes being in the city for Monday’s board meetings. “There were one or two times where I got stuck in traffic on I-95.”

The newest board member, Alicia Caraballo, missed the highest percentage of meetings, absent at three of 12 during her tenure on the board. She had the lowest attendance record, 75 percent. The retired principal of adult education was tapped to join the board last June and began serving July 1. She was voted vice president of the board in November.

Caraballo said that she did not expect to be invited onto the board after she retired in June and is serving a term that ends next year. “When I’m here, I attend as much as I can,” she said. “But my priority is my family.” Her 83-year-old mother is ill and Caraballo regularly travels to Orlando to see and take care of her. She said she will not be at the next board meeting, because she leaves Jan. 28 to spend time in Orlando for her mother’s birthday.

Caraballo said she volunteers her time to the board, despite her retirement, because she has a “real commitment and interest” to the work.

The Board of Ed has come a long way since a May 2007 Independent review of records revealed a third of the members missing during a typical meeting. One member had spent winters in Arizona and called in to meetings regularly.

For about a year and a half between 2005 and 2007, “I don’t think the board had a quorum once with physical people being there. The only way to get a quorum was to call people on the phone. It was a very difficult time,” said Torre, who is serving his second reappointment to the board and has been a member for a total of about 20 years. This year, members called in to full board meetings only twice (represented in the chart by the asterisk next to the check, “✓*”).

Board member Michael Nast said he “takes a lot of pride” in his position on the board. He said that during his time on the board, since 2007, it has “never had to cancel a meeting” because of the lack of a quorum. When his peers don’t show up, they make sure to get the notes—making it a “priority to find the minutes and see what they missed,” Nast said.

Any principal would have failed former Mayor John DeStefano, who missed all 15 full board meetings between Sept. 11, 2006 and May 15, 2007, according to the Independent report. (He started showing up regularly after that report.) Current Mayor Toni Harp attended all but three full board meetings in 2014. She is also an active participant in discussions.

The Board of Ed approved the reconfiguration of its committees in August—Curriculum and Administration & Finance merged to form the Finance and Operations Committee. The board also created a Governance committee and Teaching & Learning committee. As chair of the A&F committee before October 2014, Nast attended 15 of 19 meetings and called in to one meeting. Susan Samuels, chair of the curriculum committee before the merge, also attended 15 of 19 meetings and called into one.

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