Issue 140: Chaos at the Board of Ed
Plus: taking kids to galleries, update on the endless election season, and more!
Good morning! Oh boy, this week was one for the record books when it comes to our local Board of Ed. I try my best to fairly break everything down below. Also, I hope you can make it to our opening at SMUSH this coming Friday! Enjoy this lovely, sunny Sunday. — Amy
Chaos at the JCBOE
Complete chaos shook the most recent JCBOE meeting, and I’m going to try my very best to explain to you what on earth happened. This is going to be quite the challenge, so let me start by asking your patience as I try to unpack this.
For years, there has been increasing pressure on the JCBOE — our local schools are really struggling, taxes are going up, and things are not headed in a good direction. I’m sure every trustee on that board is feeling the pressure — and I don’t say any of this to make you feel sorry for them (because you shouldn’t), but to set the stage and to provide some context for the tensions that were growing by the time the meeting this week happened.
Another thing worth pointing out is that none of the currently serving trustees started out — or, shall I say, should have started out — on anyone’s bad side when it comes to the other members of the board. All of the trustees, even the ones that won their election at different times, have been endorsed and supported by the teacher’s union. This is not a situation where you have, for instance, Democrats and Republicans serving side-by-side and maybe someone shows up ready to fight and make a scene before even knowing anything about their colleagues. Presumably, all of these people should have some, if not a lot, of shared ideas and values and be able to work together pretty easily. Or well, you’d think.
On Wednesday, an ethics complaint was filed by Natalie Ioffe, president of the JCBOE trustees, against Devon Morris, a newly-elected trustee of the JCBOE. Ioffe alleges that Morris met with a law firm for drinks and a social gathering during the League of Municipalities, where the law firm treated him to a lavish meal at the Atlantic City Borgata.
Already, this needs unpacking. The League of Municipalities conference is a big get-together of movers and shakers in the NJ political world that meets once a year for a few days in November in Atlantic City. Politicos schmooze with other politicos, and businesses that want bids try to schmooze with them. It’s basically like any other massive industry get-together/conference only it involves all of our local governments and tax dollars. Lots of hands get shaken and deals get made. It’s not inherently a bad event by any means — again, many industries do versions of the same thing — but it’s a place where a lot of business gets done.
The law firm in question has a special counsel who was aiming to be appointed to represent the JCBOE. This means that, allegedly, Morris — before he was elected — was at this event specially designed for deals to be made, meeting with a company that was soon to have active business before the JCBOE and was positioning themselves to win a contract from them.
The League of Municipalities conference happened back in November. The call for law firms to place their bids on offering their services before the JCBOE did not happen until January 2nd, 2024. Morris wasn’t sworn in until January 11th. So this alleged lobbying happened way before he ever officially joined the board. If the allegations are true, it’s basically saying that Morris basically showed up for his first day of work trying to get his new friends a contract, which would be a pretty glaring ethics violation if proven.
According to Ioffe’s complaint, from January 20 - February 26th, Morris lobbied the JCBOE for the firm he met with back in November (it’s somewhat unclear what lobbying means in this case — did he just talk about it? did he talk incessantly about it? what?), and he did not recuse himself from voting on the contract.
From an article on Hudson County View quoting Morris:
“I thought that because we serve a diverse district, and because we are a diverse board, and because we represent a diverse city, that it would be important for us to have a diverse law firm,” he continued.
“So if I prepare to be overzealous about that, it’s because I was excited to have the opportunity to participate in a process to give the opportunity for such a privilege of having a law firm that would be diverse.”
Ok, so, everything I just wrote was in the past — maybe the pretty recent past, but the past nonetheless. That brings us update to the meeting.
During Thursday’s meeting, Morris accused Ioffe of being too close to the superintendent of schools, Norma Fernandez. The accusation here, I think, is that the schools are taking too long to improve and that Ioffe is complicit in that. This may be valid, I’m not sure — but what happened next is truly wild. From the HCV article:
He then gave the floor to Trustee Younass Barkouch, who made a motion to remove Trustee Noemi Velazquez as vice president, which Morris seconded as the crowd began to get rowdy, prompting Ioffe to call for order.
This is where everything goes sideways, and someone who understands Robert’s Rules — something I have deeply refused to ever come to an understanding of — needs to really weigh in on.
It would be perfectly feasible for me to try and rework the Hudson County View article (which makes better sense of the meeting, I think?, than the video of the meeting itself does) in these next few sentences, but I just don’t follow how this part of the meeting unfolded, with people talking over each other, one thing contradicting another, and what anyone was thinking, or how any of this is good when it comes to providing a public school education for the children of Jersey City.
But as the eventual fallout from all of this, Ioffe and others walked out, Morris was declared president and Barkouch vice-president. (I cannot believe this is binding, as “electing a new president and vice-president” was never on the agenda, but again — I don’t fully understand Robert’s Rules, so what do I know.)
Then:
They then went to closed session for about an hour before resuming board business for about another hour. Barkouch said with the absence of legal counsel present, they would be using ChatGPT if a legal issue arose.
What. What. What?????
Listen, I’m sorry — I understand that whatever happened in this meeting was informed by the heat of the moment and people who have very strong opinions on a lot of things I only tangentially understand, but any time you’re saying “hey, we don’t know if this is legal or not but it’s ok because we have Chat GPT to depend on,” that’s a problem. This is a horrendous turn for our BOE to take. I’m fine assuming there were things happening that I don’t totally follow, but once I hit this quote, forget it.1
The Jersey City Times has a different take on the meeting which I find perplexing, but again, it was chaotic and a lot of things were happening:
The five insurgents said they had acted out of frustration with the Ioffe’s and Velasquez’s failure to perform their duties, their lack of transparency with the public and fellow board members, and their lack of accountability.
I mean, sure — I could certainly see that coming into play here, but to me that sounds like the generic statement put out by anyone trying to justify their actions in a wild situation like this one. I’d assume if I suddenly busted into my department chair’s office with four of my friends and declared myself the new chair of our department at school, I’d probably issue a statement that sounded like that, and leave out more specific and pressing grievances like “I need a raise” in favor of saying something that would help rally support in my favor. Everybody always wants more transparency and accountability from their leadership — always, constantly — and most people think they could do better than their higher-ups at work are doing right now. But at the same time, we don’t all constantly overthrow people in positions of power — nothing would ever get done if we did.
It may be that they have very valid complaints against Ioffe — I have no idea, but I am very open to that. But a vague statement like this really doesn’t go very far in terms of addressing what happened. I kept thinking as I watched the video online that if this were a meeting of a company that was publicly traded, their stock would plummet the second this video hit the internet. How on earth does a meeting like this go so wrong? It seems so impossible to me that two members — including one who only came on board back in January — would have exhausted every single other option such that they had no choice but to turn the whole process into chaos.
Whatever the reason, this is frankly nuts. My heart breaks for all the teachers who had to show up for work on Friday knowing that this transpired, and that this board is supposed to be the voice of reason over their workplace — as well as the education of thousands of children. And of course, I really fear for the kids who are dependent on this system and really need it to be there, functioning fully. This is a mess.
What is going to happen next? Who, exactly, is the President of the JCBOE? How are any of them going to work together going forward? What does all this mean for the functioning of our schools? Where do we go from here? I have literally no answers — and from looking around, it doesn’t seem like anyone else does either.
It bears mentioning that the same day all this happened, a local school had to switch to remote learning because they didn’t have any heat, and this is at least the second time this calendar year that this has happened to a school in Jersey City. I don’t want to overstate this — no one switched to online learning because of the JCBOE feud — but my point is that we have some very real problems our schools, students, and teachers are facing, and that means the trustees have to get along with one another enough to solve them. They don’t have a choice — this is bigger than they are, and this is bigger than whatever disagreements they have. Every single one of the trustees needs to grow up, put their differences aside, and get back to work to solve these issues. They ran for this office, they got what they said they wanted, and now they’re here. Whatever on earth happened on Thursday, it’s a distraction from the task at hand. They need to get to work.
(This is probably a good time to point out that next week, Dr. Norma Fernandez, the Superintendent of Schools, will be the guest speaker at the Journal Square Community Association meeting. It’s scheduled at 10 am on Saturday, March 9th at the HCCC Library, 71 Sip Ave, 6th Floor Atrium. I am very curious to see if that meeting happens as scheduled, but for now, it’s on. Might not be a bad idea to check their website and/or their Facebook page before heading over that morning.)
Reminder — art opening this week!
Hey just a reminder that a group show I’m in called Of Our Being opens at SMUSH Gallery (340 Summit Ave) this week. I had a local mom reach out and ask about the best times and days to bring kids to the gallery, and what the general etiquette is for that, so I just thought I’d quickly address that.
There is an opening on Friday, March 8th from 6-9pm and then the gallery is open 3pm to 6pm on March 9, 10, 17, 23, 24 & April 7, 13, 14, 20, 21. Generally speaking, I wouldn’t bring little kids to an art opening — you can; it’s not like there’s some secret thing that goes on at art openings you’d want to keep them from. But usually this is the most crowded time (openings often get pretty hot and sweaty just from all the bodies standing around) and I could see many kids, especially if they’re very young, feeling either overwhelmed or just bored by the experience of a bunch of adults standing around a gallery talking.
However, on the other days, it’s certainly fine to bring kids, and pretty much all days are equal (note that this particular gallery has very limited hours and days that it’s open, so be sure to check the list of available times above). SMUSH is very small, so if there’s other people around I’d advise folding up any strollers you come in with if you plan to visit more than just a couple of minutes. If your kid is old enough to not need a stroller but young enough to not understand “don’t touch” and “don’t run around like crazy,” holding them by the hand is crucial. Galleries are basically stores — just like you wouldn’t let your toddler run around the supermarket grabbing stuff off the shelves and making a huge mess, you wouldn’t let them do the same at a gallery. But beyond that, SMUSH is a very accommodating and informal space, and I wouldn’t stress out too much about your kid behaving “correctly.” Some kids love art and want to spend time really looking at stuff, others roll their eyes immediately and could care less — either reaction, or anything in between, is totally fine. Running, prolonged screaming, and touching are generally not ok, but I wouldn’t stress behavior issues otherwise.
I’d even like to suggest that if you have never taken your kid to a gallery before, SMUSH could be an ideal place to test the waters because they are so informal and accommodating. One last thing I’d advise — your time in the gallery is likely to be 5-15 minutes, maybe as much as half an hour if you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while and start talking, but this is a stretch. This is not a situation where you’re going to kill five hours wandering around the space — it is tiny, and you should plan accordingly. So again, I think this could be a really ideal place to take a young viewer to see art for the first time, because the time commitment is very minimal. (And for what it’s worth, nearby Venti Italian Specialties at 203 Academy Street has great salads and soups — it’s grab-and-go and I’m not sure where you can sit in the neighborhood, but I highly recommend swinging by while at the gallery.)
Updates on the endless campaign season
Congressman and candidate for Senate Andy Kim filed a lawsuit to bar the county line for ballots.
Newark Mayor and candidate for NJ Governor Ras Baraka came out in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza. I kind of expected that this would receive more attention given the push for ceasefire resolutions happening all over the northern part of the state, but also I don’t think too many people are really following the governor’s race just yet.
Mayoral candidate Jim McGreevey released a statement about the Loews Theater. He also has a new weird billboard that’s been spotted throughout town — I tried to take a picture but failed miserably at getting anything useful and not horrendously blurry. But this new one is less about his civic org and instead hypes an upcoming mental health forum sponsored by the non-profit he heads. Just gonna go out on a limb and say I’m not a fan of billboards in general as campaign tools. I think statements and letters to the editor can help encourage conversation and discussion and I’m all for them; billboards, not so much, especially ones with lots of text on them which are hard to read while driving. Maybe let’s leave the billboards for scammy “cars for kids” businesses and stuff like that which we all collectively ignore.
ICYMI
Reminder that Gimme Shelter, local artist Woolpunk’s event, happens at the CRRNJ Terminal (1 Audrey Zapp Drive) from 10am to 3pm on March 10th. At the same time as that event, there will also be a microfiber/recycling classes for children and a mending classes. Probably best to check the artist’s IG for updates on scheduling and other info as the event draws closer.
Also, what on earth would the prompt be? I keep trying to work this one out. “If a one-person majority on a board decides to abruptly replace a president mid-term with no warning or notification of the action, can they do that according to Robert’s Rules?” That’s the best I could come up with and I tried it and basically Chat GPT answered, “maybe, but probably not,” so even by their own metric of getting legal advise this was pretty ill-advised. The site tells me the following:
Robert's Rules of Order is a widely used guide for conducting meetings and making decisions in organized groups, such as boards of directors. However, whether or not a one-person majority on a board can abruptly replace a president mid-term without warning or notification would depend on the specific rules outlined in the organization's bylaws and any relevant state laws governing such actions.
In many cases, the bylaws of an organization will specify the process for removing an officer, including the president, and may include requirements such as advance notice, a formal vote, or a specific reason for removal. If the bylaws do not specify a procedure for removing the president, Robert's Rules of Order may provide guidance on how such actions can be taken, typically requiring a motion to remove the president, a second, and a majority vote of the members present and voting.
However, it's important to note that even if Robert's Rules of Order allow for such action, it may not be considered appropriate or ethical to remove a president without warning or notification, particularly if there are no justifiable reasons for the removal. This could lead to legal challenges or damage the reputation and effectiveness of the organization. Therefore, it's advisable for boards to follow the procedures outlined in their bylaws and to act in accordance with principles of fairness, transparency, and good governance.
Meanwhile, I just have to say: do not use Chat GPT for legal advice!! Especially for things that involve millions of dollars and thousands of people! I can’t believe we have to have this conversation! AHH!
Amy, enjoyed your take on BOE. My experience with these boards is that the Mayor typically controls decisions even for elected boards. City mayors are powerful beings!
The only complaint I have is that I can’t get the ridiculous cars for kids song out of my head. And yes, it’s a complete rip off.