Christopher Peak Photos
Darnell Goldson, the school board’s new president.
Sarah Miller and Rodney Williams: We’re watching.
Darnell Goldson, elected as the new Board of Ed president, pledged to make the schools’ finances more transparent and to avoid conflicts of interest.
Newly organized parents vowed to make sure Goldson keeps his word.
Those vows surfaced at the Board of Education’s first meeting of the year, heralding a new political order.
With the last of her predecessor’s appointees gone, Mayor Toni Harp finally consolidated her numbers on the school board. At the same time, she faces a mounting backlash from those who feel shut out from decision-making.
Strengthened by the swearing-in of Tamiko Jackson-McArthur (and with one more pick on the way), Harp and her allies immediately ousted Ed Joyner from the presidency and installed their choice of leaders during Monday night’s meeting at L.W. Beecher School.
Just in time for Carol Birks’s arrival in March as the next schools superintendent, the new dynamic could quell the infighting that last year ground the superintendent search to a halt, led to a duel challenge, and largely overwhelmed discussion of issues like school security, transportation and counseling with hours of bickering.
That doesn’t mean the board won’t see any pushback this year. In fact, a new group is mobilizing to hold the board accountable.
During the late stages of the superintendent search, when they said board members ignored them in picking Birks, parents and teachers linked up and got organized. Calling themselves NHPS Advocates, the group is now recruiting volunteers to observe committee meetings, where contracts are allocated, bylaws are revised and instructional methods are debated.
NHPS Advocates is also petitioning the Board of Alders to block Harp’s next board appointee — at least until there are clearer expectations about the investment in public education that they believe all board members should demonstrate.
Board’s New Direction …
Jamell Cotto passes Goldson a note during Monday’s meeting.
As soon as Jackson-McArthur spoke the last words of her oath as a new member, Harp’s allies requested that the board rearrange its agenda and elect new leaders immediately, before the public had a chance to comment. That motion passed unanimously.
Frank Redente nominated Goldson as president. Reading from a pre-written statement, he said Goldson would “bring the board back on track, in the right direction for all our children and families.” Goldson’s election passed 5 – 1, with Joyner voting against him and the two non-voting student representatives saying they’d have done the same.
Goldson then nominated Cotto as vice-president. “I think he’s a smart young man who’s taken on leadership in this city,” Goldson said. “He worked with children in various positions. I think he would make a good addition to the leadership of this board, and hopefully one day as leader of this board.” Once again, no one else ran against him. That vote, too, passed 5 – 1, with another dissenting vote from Joyner.
For the final leadership position, Harp offered Jackson-McArthur’s name as secretary. That one passed unanimously, with Joyner and both student representatives in agreement with the rest of the board.
After the meeting, Goldson said he’ll do his best to make the board work more cordially, efficiently and transparently, in the hopes of developing a strong working relationship with the incoming superintendent.
“I am not an educator,” he said. “My strength is not determining the best methods for educating kids. What I am is a process guy. I’ve managed organizations and boards, and I’m going to work on getting this board to the position where we can be helpful to the superintendent, as opposed to a detriment.”
“Our job is to make their job easier, and their job is to make sure that we get the information we need to do that. Making their job easier doesn’t mean taking shortcuts, taking care of friends, doing the status quo; it means you don’t have no-bid contracts and all this other stuff,” he continued. “We’re going to follow our rules.”
… And New Members
Tamiko Jackson-McArthur.
The board’s newest member, Jackson-McArthur, a pediatrician and a mother of two schoolchildren, said she couldn’t wait to get started. “I’m all over this,” she said after the meeting.
During the next four years, through 2021, she said, she plans to champion equity throughout the district.
“I want equitable education for every child in every school. It shouldn’t matter what school you’re in; there shouldn’t be that school where everybody wants to go to. Every school should be the destination school,” she explained. “That’s in academics, money, enrichment. That’s really important to me.”
Jackson-McArthur said she looks forward to advocating for that position while keeping the discussions civil. “I’m a peacekeeper, naturally. I don’t see myself having to keep the peace here, but I’m hoping to help the flow,” she said. “I don’t look forward to unnecessary disagreement, but I like healthy debate. Debate moves things along, because it brings in everyone’s ideas.”
While Jackson-McArthur received many words of congratulations on Monday night, several members of NHPS Advocates questioned why they didn’t get to weigh in at a Board of Alders public hearing first.
That’s because the city charter states that alders have a two-month window to vet all mayoral appointments. A nomination that isn’t acted upon within 60 days “shall be deemed to have been approved,” the charter states. That’s exactly what happened with Jackson-McArthur. The alders never took an up-or-down vote on her appointment, so she was sworn in exactly 67 days after her nomination letter was written. The Aldermanic Affairs Committee will still question Jackson-McArthur at its next meeting, but they won’t have a chance to vote.
“Our alders failed to play their role as a check on executive power in this process,” said Sarah Miller, the parent of two children at Columbus School who helped organize NHPS Advocates.
Through an online petition, the NHPS Advocates have asked alders to reject Harp’s next school board appointee unless the person possess three basic qualifications: (1) an expertise in the field of education, either through academic study or job experience; (2) a commitment to public education, such as sending one’s own children to city schools; and (3) no entanglements in personal and financial conflicts of interest.
As of Tuesday morning, a day after the petition went live, nearly 300 people had signed their names in support.
Congratulations to Dr Jackson McArthur! Her credentials, education, profession, and community commitment all speak to a person who will do well as a member of this board.
The parents group is wrong to request requirements for members of the BOE. Community Boards are for the community members to be involved in the success of their community. The "guidelines" being pushed by them are simply plantational control tactics at their core.
Where were these parents when John DeStefano was doing whatever he wanted to do wherever he wanted to do it!
Just because the leader of this city is a black woman, the BOE is primarily minority, and minorities are finally at the table....here comes this group crying foul. It's sickening and is an example of the privilege certain women of certain ethnicities expect ALL THE TIME...that's why they were alone at their "women's march". Stop the faux advocacy and learn to work with everyone.
The history of these women and black women goes all the way back to slavery when black women were used for absolutely everything under the sun, but never valued.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired.........