Yet More School Board Drama

Newsday wasted no time in covering the story of last night's eleventh-hour contract signing by the outgoing board. The piece also adds credence to rumors that had been floating in the lively comment section of my previous post of an attempt to bring this before the courts to prevent the contract from being signed.

A new teacher's contract approved last night became the latest skirmish in a bitter struggle over control of the Lawrence school board, which will soon be led by an Orthodox Jewish majority that has been sharply critical of district spending.

With just two weeks before the new majority takes over, the rancor between public and private school advocates, many of them from the Orthodox community, landed in court yesterday as three sitting board members unsuccessfully sought a court order to block the vote on the teachers' contract.

This passage sums up my feelings on the matter:

The meeting was the last before the new majority takes control of the board, and many private school advocates said they are suspicious of the sudden resolution of a contract dispute that has been going on for a year.

"Tonight, the letter of the law was, in fact, upheld but the spirit of the law was trampled upon," said Michael Hattan, one of the new members who will be sworn in next month.

I agree completely. This last-minute contract deal saddled the incoming board with a massive financial responsibility, and it did so in a manner that was clearly against the mandate inicated by the voters in the the elections just last month.

One point in the piece that I find extremely disingenuous is the following two paragraphs:

The three board members who sought the court order were Asher Mansdorf, Murray Forman and David Sussman. Forman and Mansdorf will, along with two new members to be sworn in on July 5, comprise the new Orthodox majority on the panel.

...Sussman was booed when he spoke against the contract.

"We have a lot of problems in the district and this contract leaves us in the lurch," he said. "We have not adequately discussed how we are going to pay for it."

The reporter spend a lot of column space setting the stage for the "fact" that the rancor exists solely between the Orthodox and the public school community. Yet that is not the case. David Sussman is neither Orthodox nor a private school parent. The man sends his children to Lawrence public schools, yet somehow, when he makes a point that sums up the fiscal irresponsibility on the part of the outgoing board in signing this contract, it is dismissed as merely "tensions on the board". And when the reporter mentions the fact that three board members voted against the contract, it mentions the Orthodox status of 2 of the 3 - but glosses over the non-Orthodox status of the third?

Does it occur to anyone that perhaps, this isn't about one segment of the community looking to shaft the district's students, but maybe, just maybe, it's an alliance of likeminded people from all segments of the community looking to create a healthy, sustainable, financial environment so that going forward, the needs of all the district children can be met?

In a bit of refreshing honesty, one school board member actually speaks up about the motives behind the manner in which the contract was sneaked in under the wire:

"Sometimes you have to grab hold of opportunities and the opportunity presented itself that the union was more willing to negotiate harder and give more back because of the political realities" of a new Orthodox Jewish majority on the board, said board member Pamela Greenbaum, one of the four members who supported the new contract.

Maybe if everyone were to start being more up-front about their motives and bring some honesty to the table, we can actually get somewhere when it comes to the common goal of helping our children.