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School board revamps rules
'Seismic shift' aims to stop interference with staff
(Published February 23, 2004)

By KATHRYN SINZINGER
Staff Writer

A nearly unanimous D.C. Board of Education has adopted new procedural rules aimed at eliminating the board’s interference with day-to-day school operations and a new ethics policy that threatens board members with public censure if they break the rules.

"This represents a seismic shift in the way the board does operations," school board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz said prior to the board’s 7-1 votes Feb. 18 on two resolutions that created the new rules.

District IV board representative William Lockridge, who opposed the measures and sought their further consideration by a board committee, said he will reluctantly "go along with that process." District II board representative Dwight Singleton was absent from the monthly meeting, and mayoral nominee Carolyn Graham has not yet been confirmed by the city council to begin serving on the board.

The new rules, which eliminate all standing committees except the Committee of the Whole, become effective March 1. The board plans to substitute working sessions, briefings and workshops with the superintendent and other administrative staff between monthly school board meetings. The rules provide for formation of ad hoc committees "to perform oversight and development of policy and to address issues that require immediate attention by the board."

District I board representative Julie Mikuta said the new procedures will allow the board and school officials "to become more efficient" by eliminating duplicative presentations to committees and the full board.

"Instead of taking up a lot of staff time, they can say it once," Mikuta said.

The board’s action came after Superintendent Elfreda W. Massie quietly submitted her resignation. School officials confirmed on Feb. 20 that Massie will leave in mid-April after serving five months in an interim capacity, following the abrupt resignation last Nov. 14 of then-superintendent Paul L. Vance. Vance and Massie both cited political squabbling over school governance as a primary reason for their departures.

"The reality of our operations is that we are dysfunctional from the superintendent’s viewpoint," said board member Robin Martin, a mayoral appointee, in explaining his support for revising the board’s procedures.

Martin said a December report from the Council of the Great City Schools, which blamed D.C. public schools’ poor academic performance largely on the school system’s lack of cohesive citywide programs, "shook up many of us" and helped the board set its new course.

Cafritz said elimination of issue-focused committees will "give the entire board ownership … in all of the issues" surrounding the schools. She said the board will focus on overall policy for the school system and its oversight responsibility to ensure that the superintendent properly implements the board’s policies in running the schools.

"The [superintendent’s] administration will be responsible for significantly driving the [board’s] agenda," Cafritz said.

The board’s new policy directs the superintendent to designate a staff liaison to the school board, who will be authorized to respond to board members’ requests for information, and to instruct other school staff not to respond to individual board members’ requests unless they are specifically directed to do so by the superintendent.

Turning the school board into a more policy-oriented body was part of the reason cited four years ago by advocates of eliminating the formerly all-elected school board. The old 11-member board included eight members elected to represent the city’s eight wards, who were often criticized for interfering with operations at individual schools within their wards. The current board structure includes members elected to represent four "districts," each of which includes two wards.

The board’s new procedural policy retains board control over "all finance, budgetary, and contracting matters, including the approval of all contracts over $100,000," which must be submitted by the superintendent for review.

The new ethics policy adopted by the board enumerates a 13-point "Code of Ethics," which directs members to "put loyalty to the welfare of the children and to the School District as a whole above loyalty to individuals, voting districts, particular schools or other special interest groups." The code includes a provision binding the board to follow "the letter and the spirit of the District of Columbia public posting requirements using closed meetings only to take preliminary action on sensitive personnel, student, legal or contractual issues."

A 15-point section of the ethics policy defines specific acceptable and unacceptable relationships between board members and the schools. The policy says board members will "visit schools often" but are prohibited from "insert[ing] themselves into staff operations, plac[ing] themselves between staff members in any disputes or negotiations, or engag[ing] in solving staff problems."

The policy says board members "will recognize that his or her responsibility is not to run the schools, but to see that they are well run."