Archived News Item

They Can't Hear You

There is no forum for discussion at BHS!

The majority of PTSA officers, of which I am one, won’t allow appropriate and important discussion at PTSA meetings. Nor is discussion allowed on the PTSA e-tree, or in the PTSA newsletter (which, by the way, costs the PTSA over $8,000 a year to print and mail).

As an elected PTSA Vice President I’ve had to argue for three years to allow PTSA members to exercise their right to vote. I had to struggle to get the PTSA to elect its officers in the Spring so that the PTSA could get started with planning during the summer. The “tradition” was to elect the officers at the first PTSA meeting of the year in September—not practical or effective. I’ve had to convince the PTSA to read and follow its bylaws so it could expand its leadership and activities. There were two PTSA officers three years ago. The PTSA didn’t even have a secretary or board meetings. Now there are 13 officers and monthly board meetings.

But the PTSA still won’t take the next step and allow PTSA members to have input. Do you realize that if you have a constructive suggestion or a concern you cannot raise your hand at a PTSA meeting and speak unless you first attend a PTSA board meeting and ask permission? This is a violation of the National, State, and our own PTA bylaws. Any PTSA member has the right to make announcements, bring up issues, make suggestions, and to otherwise speak at association meetings without prior permission from the PTSA board!

Here’s an example: I wanted to organize a holiday celebration with a multicultural potluck, food drive, student music and dancing last winter but the board forbid me to speak about this to the PTSA to see if there was interest in forming a committee to organize the event. They didn’t want to do the event, so they wouldn’t allow me to speak about it. Our PTSA squelches participation, discourages involvement, and furthers its reputation as an exclusive and irrelevant group. No wonder people, especially teachers and students, don’t come to PTSA programs and meetings! When they do they are fed information and the meeting follows an agenda that is tightly controlled. The PTSA should be a forum for constructive expression and action for everyone in the BHS community.

It’s exasperating. That’s why I wish students and teachers would join the PTSA and help run it. The P(parents) T( teachers) S(students) Association is supposed to be a place for these groups to work together to improve the educational experience for all students. We now have three student PTSA board members. We need more students—and teachers== to run for PTSA office. If you’d like to participate by being an officer, just send an email to me and I’ll pass your name along to the PTSA Nominating Committee which just started to look for next year’s officers. The PTSA election will be held at the May 18 PTSA meeting.

However, the PTSA does not have decision-making authority. So while the PTSA can and should be a forum for discussion, and a group which actively works to improve BHS, it can only make recommendations to the Administration and School Board. The PTA charter states that PTA recognizes that the authority for running the School rests with the School Board and the Administration. And there is a third authority in Berkeley and all California communities which participate in the California School Improvement Act: the School Site Council.

The BUSD is in violation of California law, and we have been co-opted

The SSC has legal authority conferred by the California legislature to be a policy and decision-making group with elected representation from students, parents, teachers and administrators. The SSC at each Berkeley school has authority to create policies, goals, and plans and to make sure that they are implemented. The SSC is not an advisory group, it actually makes policy. Because it is a public decision-making body created by the State of California, it must follow the “Brown Act”. This means that it is required to post its agendas, its meetings are open to the public, and its members are elected by the constituent groups. Half of the SSC is parents and students and the other half is teachers, staff and administrators. Parents are elected by parents, students by students, teachers by teachers, staff (including secretaries, custodians, etc.) by staff. The Principal is a member of the SSC and has one vote just like the other members. SSCs were created by the California legislature so that those closest to the students—parents and teachers—could share decision-making authority with the principals, School Board and Superintendent. The SSC is the legally authorized decision-making body at BHS.

But guess what? The Superintendent, School Board, and BHS Administration don’t want you to know that. In fact, the Superintendent tried to co-opt the SSC by creating a separate hand-picked group called “Shared Governance” three years ago. “Shared Governance” does not have to follow the Brown Act. Jim Slemp has inherited this group and works with it to make decisions, at least that’s what we’ve been told. We don’t know who the members of Shared Governance are. We don’t know when they meet. Their meetings are not announced and they are private. We don’t know what is on their agenda. We don’t know how their meetings are run. We don’t have input to the group. Because I complained that only one parent was on Shared Governance another parent was added—two parents for a school of 2700 students??

Nevertheless, the SSC is still the legitimate shared governance group at BHS and it cannot be co-opted! The SSC works in a democratic and open way. The members of the SSC are elected to represent their constituents—just like the School Board. In fact, the SSC is a mini-school board at BHS and should have a public comment period, hold hearings on issues (such as IES, the 6 period day, and so forth). As an alternate on the SSC I have tried to get it to do these things, but again, there is little opportunity for discussion and change.

Sometimes I offend people by asking questions and making suggestions. This makes me unpopular with some of the cheerleaders for the status quo who don’t like the boat rocked, but I just think things can be done better at BHS and excluding students and parents from the decision-making process is a huge mistake! We should evolve away from a top-down, autocratic style of management to one that is open, honest, and democratic because the old style just doesn’t work! Sure we want a strong principal, but no one person, no matter how tall, can make smart decisions without plenty of input from the most important stakeholders at BHS—the students, teachers and parents. After all, without us there is no BHS.

Cynthia Papermaster, parent of a BHS junior (cpapermaster@gibsondunn.com)

This week is Spring Break, and school is very much out. I’ll be driving down to the LA area to tour colleges, so I’ll be out until Friday; anything urgent will jolly well have to wait until then.

Have fun, don’t burn your house down, and try and get a little work done for Monday.

— Brandon