Rules of Engagement

A prominent Manhattan education leader was held up for nearly an hour by school officials before gaining entrance to a School Leadership Team (SLT) meeting where co-location plans were unveiled.

A Brooklyn teacher said parents returned from a city Department of Education (DOE) engagement workshop interested in attending such meetings, but one who showed up was turned away.

And a Staten Island teacher’s quest to get school budget questions answered at SLT meetings launched two lawsuits.

They are among a group of educators and activists who said they were optimistic when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio assumed office because he had pledged to usher in a more collaborative era at the DOE. But his administration has not altered a policy they say is inconsistently enforced and sometimes bars the community from attending SLT meetings, where individual schools map out goals, plans and budgets.

In January, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James and the education advocacy group Class Size Matters joined a lawsuit that predates de Blasio’s election, but seeks to force his administration to formally recognize SLT meetings as open, public gatherings. James said she wrote the city schools chancellor asking her to reconsider the policy, and was surprised when the administration would not budge.

“I thought they would be committed to transparency,” James said. “I think it’s integral to improving our public school system.”

Under the chancellor’s regulations, every school must convene an SLT comprised of the principal, parent association president, United Federation of Teachers chapter leader and at least seven others. The group is required to meet at least once a month during the school year—after giving notice in a form consistent with the Open Meetings Law—and develop a comprehensive education plan that contains goals and an action plan meant to inform the school’s budget.

But the city has taken the position that SLTs don’t need to comply with the Open Meetings Law because they operate solely in an advisory capacity, according to city Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci. It is a point that has been fought over in court in recent years. 

Plaintiffs also argue that civic meetings on public school property, such as SLT gatherings, must be open to the public under another state law. Investigators found this protocol was not followed when de Blasio met privately with union members in a Canarsie school in July.

Above all, advocates say public admission makes sense.

Lisa Donlan, president of one of more than 30 Community Education Councils overseen by the DOE and charged with providing input on education policy, noted she and a journalist had to argue their way into a September 2013 SLT meeting.

“As I expected, the Office of Portfolio Planning’s co-location proposal was not welcomed by the University Neighborhood High School community,” she said in an affidavit. “The press coverage of this SLT meeting and the ensuing debate is a perfect example of why open meetings are critical to democratic school governance.”

Brooklyn teacher Michelle Baptiste said several parents attended a DOE workshop in spring 2014 and returned with the expectation of attending SLT meetings. But a mother who showed up was turned away for not informing them she planned to attend.

Baptiste found herself in the parent’s position when her colleagues at PS 92 voted her onto the SLT in June 2014. She planned to take a sabbatical, but remain engaged and attend SLT meetings.

However, Baptiste said the principal believed her time off prevented her from holding her seat or attending meetings. Baptiste said she filed three grievances with the UFT and testified about the issue in front of the Panel for Educational Policy before being permitted to assume her position on the SLT.

“You absolutely have to have a say, particularly in this time, where teachers are being judged by test scores,” Baptiste said. “We’re the ones who spend the most time in the building with the children. We can say, ‘This is working or this is not working.’”

And Staten Island teacher Francesco Portelos said SLT meetings should be public to help ensure school budgets are above the board.

Portelos said he was elected UFT chapter leader of IS 49 in 2012 shortly after he raised questions about the school budget, was removed from the classroom and investigated for misconduct.

School officials prevented him from attending SLT meetings at IS 49 and at PS 13, where his child is zoned to attend school, Portelos said.

In 2013 he challenged the matter in court, and a state judge dismissed it, agreeing with the DOE’s assessment that SLTs are advisory and noting that the department allowed substitutes when SLT members were under investigation and barred from campus.

An independent arbitrator ruled Portelos could return to the classroom in spring 2014. The arbitrator required him to pay a $10,000 fine as discipline for disclosing confidential DOE information online, altering the school website to redirect visitors to his personal blog, recording a video in IS 49 without permission and creating negative publicity for the school, among other charges, the DOE said.

Portelos’ experienced inspired a retired colleague, Michael Thomas, to attempt to attend an IS 49 SLT meeting. When he was rejected, he filed a second case, which James and Class Size Matters then signed onto.

“Dennis Walcott put out a PowerPoint saying SLT meetings are open and you may want to come,” Class Size Matters Executive Director Leonie Haimson said of the prior administration’s school chancellor. “It’s very sad that this [de Blasio] administration that claims to care about parent collaboration … and claims they want to be more transparent and allow more community involvement would do something that actually contradicts the prior administration.”