It’s
easy to become jaded while observing local politics, especially as it pertains
to education. Contrary to some folks’ naïve notions, “education is a political
process,” as city school board member Bolgen Vargas said at the board’s June 19
meeting.
Indeed, politics was on everyone’s
mind that night. The board had convened to pick a replacement for former
Commissioner of Schools Joanne Giuffrida, who’d resigned her post to take a
high-level position in the district’s administration in May. State law dictates
that the replacement live in the city and be enrolled in the same party as the
departing member — in this case, the Democratic Party; all the commissioners
are Dems.
This is a particularly politically
charged time to choose a replacement, with four seats on the board up for grabs
in this fall’s election. Some current board members, such as vice president Rob
Brown, interpreted the law to mean the replacement should reflect the will of
the party. At the Dems’ May convention, four candidates got the party’s
endorsement: current board president Shirley Thompson, Malik Evans, David
Perez, and former board member Willa Powell.
Board member Darryl Porter, on the
other hand, thought a relative outsider — Woody Hammond — would be a more
appropriate choice to fill the seat until the end of the year. Hammond is a
veteran administrator in the district, but he’s also a neophyte candidate for
school board this year. He failed to get the party’s nod, but plans to force a
primary this September.
Still others, mostly folks either
not on the school board or folks on the Democrat
and Chronicle‘s editorial board, thought a parent untainted by the
political process would be a wise choice. “The [school] board needs a fresh
perspective, one free of the political machinations that seem to infect every
approach, every decision made,” the D&C
editorialized the morning of the meeting. The editorial encouraged parents
to attend the meeting en masse and demand to be heard.
Of the tens of
thousands of
parents with kids in the district, less than 10 showed up to speak. Two
speakers were, like Hammond, Dems running for the board who failed to get the
party’s endorsement. Another was Powell.
Powell spoke mostly to counter a
previous speaker’s dubious allegation that the board was only interested in
appointing her because she’s a white woman. She expressed hope that if the
board chose her, it would do so based on her qualifications, not her race and
gender.
In his long-winded way, Vargas got
around to nominating Powell. Porter and Commissioner Jim Bowers suggested
several others, including Hammond and Jim Greco, a bombastic board critic who’s
among those Dems seeking to force a primary.
Hammond was rejected by a 4-2 vote
and Powell subsequently selected by the same margin.
That’s when my jadedness reached its
peak.
“One of the things that anyone
that’s ever worked with me knows is that I have no sense of humor,” she said.
“Tomorrow we’ll joke about all this, but today I will say ‘Thanks for nothing,’
because it has been difficult to watch this process.”
“I know that the position of the
Democratic Party, through the convention, is part of the decision-making
process that brought me here to the floor today, and I’m ready to get down to
work,” she said. “But when I say ‘Thanks for nothing,’ I mean that. I don’t
want my time wasted.”
And with that, Powell ascended the
dais, her face an expressionless mask, and began serving as one of the seven
public officials responsible for overseeing education in the morass of poverty,
political in-fighting, and failure that is Rochester’s school district.
Unlike Powell, I do have a sense of
humor. But even I couldn’t joke about this the next day.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2003.
