In his last term, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will be leaving a mark that will potentially silence parents who criticize school board policies, according to two parents and board leaders.
The said rule proposed by Chancellor’s Regulation D-210 will allow the Department of Education (DOE) the authority to “discipline and remove” elected parents from Community Education Councils (CEC) — the city’s version of a school board — if they criticize the school district they are charged with holding accountable, write former District 2 CEC president Maud Maron and current District 2 CEC vice president Danyela Souza Egorov in the New York Post.
DOE will have the power to silence parents by relying on the language to determine “violations of conduct” and, more disturbing, establish yet another administrative position to monitor parents: the equity-compliance officer. This (no doubt expensive) bureaucrat would be charged with deciding who to target for removal for violating the newly expanded “code of conduct.”
According to Maron and Egorov, the “whole point of an elected parent council” is to be able to freely oppose DOE policies. The proposal is set to be voted on December 21, a date chosen, write the parent leaders, because it is “not a historically high parent-participation date.”
One section of the newly minted “Code of Conduct” bars council members from engaging in “frequent verbal abuse and unnecessary aggressive speech.” It also gives the chancellor the authority to remove a member if the chancellor determines their conduct is “contrary to the best interest of the New York City school district.” Removal from the CEC might come if member conduct “creates or would foreseeably create a risk of disruption within the district or school community.”
Maron and Egorov say the new proposal also “establishes yet another administrative position to monitor parents: the equity-compliance officer.” This officer would be “charged with deciding who to target for removal.”
“Even worse, an Equity Council, a team of DOE-appointed apparatchiks, would be tasked with providing recommendations on the resolutions of complaints—in other words, who to remove and silence,” they wrote. In the event of a disagreement between the Equity Compliance Officer and the Equity Council, the recommendation of the Equity Compliance Officer shall govern, according to the proposed regulation.
A code of conduct, if properly implemented, is not unreasonable. But the fox shouldn’t guard the henhouse: The DOE cannot enforce an overbroad and pretextual code of conduct clearly designed to silence parents.
“Calling parents ‘domestic terrorists’ did not work to silence parents at school-board meetings,” Maron and Egorov conclude, “and trying to do an end-run around democratically elected parent leaders should not be allowed either.”
Sources: Right News Hour, NY Post, Breitbart, The Epoch Times
