Lisa Haver is a retired teacher in Philadelphia and a tireless advocate for the kids and teachers of that city. She writes here about the undemocratic methods of tha Philadelphia school board, which prefers to operate without transparency.

She wrote the following report with Lynda Rubin on behalf of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools.

The board’s speaker suppression policies are now doing double duty: not just to keep members of the community from speaking but to keep them out of the room altogether. A guard at the door to the auditorium told Lynda Rubin she could go in because she was on the speaker list but barred Lisa Haver because she wasn’t. Haver had tried to sign up but was told by the board that she would not be one of the 30 chosen speakers. She told the guard he could arrest her but that she was going in. Last month some APPS members were detained downstairs because they were not on the list…

Board Denies Charter Reapplication
In the end, the board voted 7-2 to deny the re-application submitted by Global Leadership Academy to operate a high school in the Logan section of North Philadelphia. But that was after a lengthy deliberation session in which some board members, bordering on groveling, expressed their regret at having to deny GLA. BM Sarah Ashley Andrews declared her allegiance to GLA CEO Naomi Booker, who makes approximately $450,000 annually to oversee one school, advising her, “Don’t be defeated.” BM Lam, on the other hand, challenged the statements of praise for GLA’s program. She cited the 1% Math achievement rate and poor attendance at the GLA schools. Most board comments centered around the contents of the application, not the increased stranded costs to the district or how another charter school in Logan would affect the neighborhood’s public schools. The entire process, from Charter Schools Office Director Peng Chao’s presentation and subsequent Q & A session, to the board’s final vote on Item 78, took almost an hour.

Not What Democracy Looks Like
President Streater began the voting session, at 10:37 pm, by quickly rattling off the numbers of the items remaining on the agenda after the vote on Item 78 and the withdrawal of six other items. He instructed the board that all 71 items would be included in one roll call vote. As the individual board members began to enumerate their No votes and abstentions before the vote, Lisa Haver stood up to object. After the vote concluded, and General Counsel Lynn Rauch read the tally, Streater allowed her to come to the mic. Haver objected to the board’s voting on 71 items, for contracts totalling almost half a billion dollars, in one roll call vote, calling the process “shameful”. She also reminded the board that members who abstain from a vote because of a potential conflict must clearly identify the conflict. Streater did not respond. BM Cecelia Thompson, a longtime community advocate herself, said later, “I agree with Ms. Haver.” Thompson said that taxpayers do have a right to know how their money is being spent. Hopefully Thompson will refuse to participate at the next meeting and demand that each item be deliberated and voted on separately.

This is not just a procedural question. We tallied 29 items on the agenda that do not include a provision for any bidding process. The board is passing items for no-bid contracts after barring the public from speaking on most of them, attempting to keep people out of the room, conducting little to no public deliberation on them, and voting on all of them in one vote.

We wrote to the board after the April incident, pointing out that they had only set up 82 chairs in an auditorium that seats 240 people. Thus, the same people who were denied the right to speak now no longer have the right to be present. Did the board not want APPS to witness its voting to spend over $500 million in taxpayer money on 78 official items? Or voting on a charter application that would cost the district hundreds of millions over the next five years? A governmental body not accountable to the public can become tyrannical and dictatorial. We need an elected school board.

In response to APPS’ letter to the board after the April action meeting, Streater defended the practice by citing the board’s need for “efficiency”. Neither the City’s Home Rule Charter nor the board’s own mission statement mandates efficiency. The board promises community engagement and transparency, then conducts its business in a hurried and secretive manner.

Among the contracts passed with little to no deliberation:
Items 73 and 74: $40 million for new Reading and Math curricula, which, according to teachers familiar with the programs, replaces book-centered programs with online programs for every student in every grade from pre-K through 12th. Why does the board and the Watlington administration want to do this? Do children need more on-screen time? Many parents are limiting screen time for health issues and because of the built-in tracking system.

When will democracy come to the city that is the cradle of democracy?