School committee following the autocrats, crushing dissent

Autocrats everywhere would be so proud.

The Worcester School Committee is following the autocrat’s handy playbook crushing dissent wherever it exists. The good news is that they haven’t shot or poisoned anyone yet. The bad news is that they are controlling what issues get discussed and what aren’t allowed.

It all started last year at the end of the previous School Committee’s term. Worried that they were getting four new members, the School Committee changed its rules limiting what members could and couldn’t do.

Initially, they tried to limit School Committee members from visiting schools (they needed to be invited by the principal even to public events). More ominously, they are continuing a recent practice that limits what items members can propose for the School Committee agenda. The mayor put a single member, Jermaine Johnson, in charge of reviewing each item filed by individual members. In this role, Johnson gets to decide whether that item is worthy of being discussed by the School Committee.

How is that democratic?

Then at the very first meeting of the School Committee, new member Maureen Binienda asked for a table of organization showing all of the system’s administrative positions and the salaries attached to each position among other things. That request made sense because, over the past few years, the superintendent has added a bushel of new top jobs at a cost of somewhere between one and two million dollars. The School Committee refused her request.

First, what Binienda was asking for is public information that should be available to anyone. Second, it’s financial information that every School Committee member should have especially as they review the school department budget. But a majority of the School Committee said she couldn’t have the information and at least one member scolded her for having the timidity to ask.

In all of my years serving in office and all of the years since, I have never seen a simple request for information like this refused — until now.

School safety audit

A while back the school department hired an outside consultant to perform a school safety audit. The issue was important enough that the administration and School Committee approved spending $238,000 just to get a series of recommendations.

When the report came back, a portion of it was released to the public and the School Committee. But many of the details of the report were never released and some members thought that the School Committee and the public had a right to know what was in the report. Think about it this way. If the report indicated that something needed to be corrected or changed, how can the School Committee ensure that the work is done? And if a child gets hurt or worse, because the item wasn’t corrected, how do you explain having kept the information secret?

The school administration refused to release the report citing a law that allows it to withhold certain information. The School Committee then asked that the information in the report be released to them in executive session. Even that was opposed by the school administration.

Interestingly, after I made a few calls, the administration agreed to let members read the report in the office. But they still don’t trust them enough to give them a copy.

So, let me see if I got this straight: It’s OK for the committee to discuss the superintendent’s approach to safety that she has titled the “I Love You Guys Framework,” but they can’t discuss all of the information in a report from a consultant that has specific recommendations to make the schools safer and for which they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just the other day an 11 year-old young girl was shot along with her mother in the Columbus Park School neighborhood. It’s a dangerous world outside the school. At least while they are in school, the School Committee should be held responsible for keeping children safe. But they can’t do that if the school administration doesn’t trust them enough to give them the information they need to do their jobs.

Three items refused

Also recently, School Committee member Dianna Biancheria filed three separate items for discussion. She asked about the NEADS dog housed at South High School and the funding for it with an eye toward expanding the program to other schools; she asked the school administration to do more to publicize official school budget deliberations beyond what they are presently doing, and she asked that the administration bring the school liaison officers to a meeting of the School Committee and introduce them.

None of these requests are controversial. But all of them relate directly to a School Committee member’s duties. I’m told that the wording on her requests for information wasn’t precise enough and perhaps some of the information was presented previously. So Johnson refused to allow all three to be put on the official School Committee agenda.

This type of refusal is beyond outrageous.

I get that Biancheria and a few of the new members are viewed with a wary eye by the other members. But whether they like it or not, every member has a right to get information relevant to school issues.

As chairman of the School Committee the mayor could easily fix the problem.

But, unfortunately, he’s comfortable with the way things are going.

It’s simple. If a School Committee member asks for information relating to the Worcester Public Schools it should be given to him or her and to the public. Anything less is undemocratic and a dereliction of a members duty to the voters who elected them.

Email Raymond V. Mariano at rmariano.telegram@gmail.com. He served four terms as mayor of Worcester and previously served on the City Council and School Committee. He grew up in Great Brook Valley and holds degrees from Worcester State College and Clark University.

He was most recently executive director of the Worcester Housing Authority. His column appears weekly in the Sunday Telegram. His endorsements do not necessarily reflect the position of the Telegram & Gazette.

It’s simple. If a School Committee member asks for information relating to the Worcester Public Schools it should be given to him or her and to the public.