By Sudhan Thomas
The Feb. 29 meeting of the Jersey City Board of Education devolved into acrimony and chaos.
In never-before witnessed scenes, the president, vice president and two trustees abandoned an ongoing board meeting in the middle of a motion pending roll call. Trustee-pastor-detective Dejon Morris had, just minutes before this walkout, invoked Robert’s Rules of Order and said he was suspending the president for failure to roll call a pending motion after three reminders.
The five remaining trustees completed the roll call on the pending motion to remove the vice president and then elected a new vice president, removed the president and elected a new president.
They then deliberated and voted on agenda items without a board attorney present to offer counsel.
The night could have gone differently if the Gang-of-Five had voted to go into executive-session. A robust deliberation with input from a school district attorney in an unencumbered setting could have helped create a framework that guaranteed the objectives subject to the bylaws and allowed the leadership to step down gracefully.
An option for a limited reopening of the executive session record could have provided a failsafe to avoid a do-over.
The night did not suddenly fall on our heads from the skies but owes its origins to disagreements, dissent, distrust and disrespect festering among the trustees since the January 2023 reorganization meeting.
The JCBOE spends over $2 million in legal fees contracting over 12 law firms, yet not one school-law attorney was able to be present or called remotely for legal counsel throughout the meeting after the walkout. Questions will swirl if quorum requirements were fully satisfied by the fifth trustee participating via phone.
Did the motion to remove the president with four ayes and one abstention carry? Did any confabulations in advance of the meeting violate Sunshine laws? Do the agenda item votes legally bind the superintendent?
This is a legal and ethical mess.
The Department of Education and/or the civil and administrative law courts may resolve these matters over time costing further precious classroom dollars.
The night remained deafeningly silent amid all the din on what are in the best interests of the 27,000 children of the Jersey City Public Schools. Our schools have remained underfunded by over $2 billion cumulatively since 2009, which is a matter of a pending lawsuit filed in 2019 by the JCBOE. The payroll tax implemented to make up for the additional $300 million adjustment in state aid cuts by Gov. Phil Murphy in 2018 have just not added up.
Severely lagging in the $1 billion budgeted JCBOE: early childhood funding; student achievement and scores; special education; morale and mental health of staff; facilities; student counselor access; food security; and the mental health of our children.
The meeting, which was live-streamed, held an ominous split-screen moment. The JCBOE’s student representative elected by high school students sat right next to trustee Morris watching in silence as the machinations unfolded. The children are watching.
Sudhan “Tommy” Thomas is a former president of the Jersey City Board of Education.
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