School Board Two Votes to Eliminate Itself and All Boards

Community School Board 2 last month passed a resolution calling for its own demise.

In an unusual but largely symbolic step, the board voted, 7-0 (two members were absent), to eliminate New York City’s 32 community school boards and the central Board of Education.

"Never before has such momentum built to do something about all levels of school governance," Board 2’s president, Karen Feuer, said before the Feb. 13 vote, adding that she believed there is no way to fix the current model.

Before voting, board members praised their own work but criticized the performance of other boards in the city, where they said members used their positions for personal advancement and frequently spent more time waging political battles than improving education.

"Though I feel this board has done an incredible job, you have to look at the big picture and there are enough of the 32 boards that haven’t done a good job and are doing the system a disservice," said Douglas Robinson, who has been a board member for six years.

The board echoed calls by former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city and state officials for an overhaul of the largest school system in the country. In his Jan. 30 state of the city address, Mayor Bloomberg won the loudest applause when he emphatically reiterated his desire to put the school system under mayoral control.

Board 2’s resolution states that community school boards, created in 1969, now have little influence, as most of their original powers have been shifted to district superintendents and the city’s schools chancellor; that the chancellor has limited engagement with the boards; and that few people vote in board elections. Board members stressed the importance of parent involvement but said parents play a role through school leadership teams and district parent councils.

Tammy To, an absent board member whose child attends P.S. 234, opposed the resolution in a written statement, saying the board shouldn’t call for the system’s elimination without providing a blueprint for its replacement. The resolution "undermines ourselves" and "will diminish our significance," she wrote.

At the meeting, Feuer distributed an alternative plan that she helped formulate with Anne Mackinnon, a Brooklyn school board member. The proposal calls for the creation of seven-member "advisory boards," made up of parents, teacher union representatives and "experts" appointed by the chancellor.

School board 2 will continue to function unless the state legislature changes the system. The city’s next school board elections were scheduled for May, but the legislature in January moved to postpone them until next year, allowing the Senate and Assembly to look into alternate plans.