By Alex Davidson
More than a hundred parents attended an emergency town hall forum on local school governance at MS 137 in Ozone Park Monday night.
Community School Board 27 members sponsored the forum to inform parents of the decision by state legislators to eliminate local school boards in New York City.
The Legislature approved the plan to eliminate the city’s 32 community school boards in June as part of the historic school governance legislation giving Mayor Michael Bloomberg control of the city’s public school system.
“Local school boards throughout the country are the accepted standard when it comes to local school governance,” said Steven Greenberg, president of the board, who added that the boards are important because they are accountable to local voters and not the mayor. “Local representation is important; local representation is necessary.”
Greenberg said there is the possibility that there will be no local representation for parents unless they let state legislators know their feelings on what body should replace the school boards.
The proposal to eliminate community school boards must be approved by the U.S. Justice Department, which has already given its OK to another provision of the school governance legislation: the ability of the schools chancellor to hire and fire superintendents.
Parents and school board members are concerned that the centralization and transfer of school board power to the mayor’s office will result in less money and fewer schools for Queens and the district. One parent said school boards are a way to directly access the people in charge of making decisions for their children.
“To get rid of the school boards is endangering our children’s future,” said Maria Monti, a parent from the Rockaways representing PS 42. “These people know exactly what our kids need.”
Parents and school board members cited past problems, such as lack of access or the inability to talk to someone on the phone, in dealing with the central Board of Education at 110 Livingston St. in Brooklyn. It has been replaced by the Department of Education, which recently moved to the Tweed Courthouse.
School Board member Rowena Schwab said eliminating the local school boards, effectively centralizing the educational system, would create more problems for parents.
“The power in this system is getting centralized in fewer and fewer hands,” she said. “I think that’s really dangerous.”
Greenberg said other major cities in New York, such as Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo, still have elected school boards. He questioned why New York City is the only one trying to eliminate the boards and local representation.
State Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer (D-Rockaway Beach) said there has been no determination on what body will replace the boards.
“There is no final decision,” she said. “I think the most important part in the next few months would be for the community to come forward and the parents, with an idea of what they felt was important in their district for community representation.”
She said, however, that other school boards and districts around the city are not like District 27.
“Citywide the feeling of school districts or school boards are not the same as we have here,” she said. “In other districts, they cannot even get nine people to run for the board elections.”
School Board member Ernest Brown urged parents to organize in response to the state’s decision to eliminate the boards and to prepare for the upcoming hearings on a replacement with state legislators that will be held in late October or early November.
“Believe me, there are more of us than there are of legislators,” he said. “There’s 400 people sitting up there in Albany, we could practically get that in four or five blocks.”
Reach reporter Alex Davidson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 156
