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Years ago, when I was serving as a district superintendent, a pair of 3rd-grade girls approached the microphone at a school board meeting during the time devoted to public comments. Reading from their prepared remarks, they took turns explaining why the board must direct the schools to provide more instruction related to environmental issues and climate change. The board members looked at the students with kind eyes and nodded in appreciation. After all, this wasn’t the typical complaint about where a new school was being sited or why the bathroom doors wouldn’t close. These were our young people, their education was our raison d’être, and they were cute 3rd graders, part of a neighborhood activists club, who were clearly passionate about this issue.
But as the girls made their speeches, I couldn’t help thinking that, despite the righteousness of their cause and their well-articulated arguments, they had no business lecturing us in this way. It seemed clear that the adults in their lives had coached them to talk to us in a condescending and demeaning tone. Rather than simply make their argument and offer suggestions, they accused the board of willfully disregarding the issue and demanded that it take action. On one hand, they had clearly prepared for this moment and were going to get the most out of it. On the other hand, I couldn’t help thinking that if any of my three kids spoke to adults that way, they’d certainly hear about it from me.
After the meeting, some of my staff and board members remarked that these girls clearly had a point, but they expressed it distastefully. And we put the blame squarely on their parents, one of whom sat at the table beaming smugly during the girls’ speech, clearly proud that her child and friend were standing up to the powers that be. The adults and the children went home and surely told their friends the next day about how they went to a board of education meeting and fought for what’s right.
Activists are using school board meetings to express their anger, fears, and feelings of powerlessness.
This incident came to my mind recently as I reflected on the abhorrent behavior happening at school board meetings across the country. Now, I’m not suggesting that the girls who spoke at the board meeting are akin to anti-vaxxers or racists afraid of Toni Morrison. There’s a difference between hyper-confident children and armed and potentially dangerous adults. Today, whether the topic is critical race theory or mask mandates, parents (mainly white ones) and activists are using school board meetings to express their anger, fears, and feelings of powerlessness. And the media are paying attention, which could be leading to even more public expressions of outrage, as more and more people see board meetings as avenues to express themselves and get attention for doing so. They know the more outrageous they are, the more likely they’ll be to get on TV.
But these behaviors are nothing new. Yes, they’re extreme and, given the preponderance of guns in our country and real threats of violence against school leaders, they feel more serious than ever. But for those who haven’t attended or paid attention to board of education meetings prior to 2020, welcome to the club.
Unceasing demands
I became a district administrator in 1999, and I estimate that in my more than 16 years in that role, I attended at least 200 public board meetings, countless committee meetings, and around 100 public hearings. I worked with about 25 different board members as a cabinet-level leader and with approximately 30 as a superintendent. And while I’ve never conducted formal research into the nature of board meetings, I have enough experience to know that what’s happening today is just a particularly intense use of an age-old strategy.
As I wrote in my September 2018 column, most people are silent but reasonable. They want to know that their kids will be safe and reasonably happy in school, that the school system’s major problems will be addressed, and that elected public servants will be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. However, it’s the fringe voices that tend to dominate the discourse. If the media are shocked by today’s outbursts over mask-wearing, it’s only because they never paid much attention to board meetings in the past. The fact is that emotional outbursts have always been common at such meetings, whether they focus on hot-button topics such as redistricting, gifted and talented instruction, and desegregation or on topics you might expect to be less divisive, such as where to build a new school, which math curriculum to use, or whether to tweak the daily schedule.
And all too often, those outbursts are not just emotionally unhinged but flat-out demeaning and disrespectful. I’ve witnessed parents demand to see the algorithm that determines how children get placed in magnet schools, because they believe their experience in a tech start-up qualifies them to know best how to assign students. Countless times, I’ve heard community members begin sentences with, “In the real world,” or, “In my business,” as they level accusations at school district employees over a decision they don’t like. A parent who’s a mental health professional once claimed that I and the board were responsible for a middle school child’s suicide because school started too early in the morning. And those are just the in-person confrontations. Don’t get me started on emails, blog posts, and social media.
Parents and the public certainly have the right to make their voices heard. That’s how we roll in American communities, for better or for worse. And, often, it really is for better.
Parents and the public certainly have the right to make their voices heard. That’s how we roll in American communities, for better or for worse. And, often, it really is for better. I’ve seen tons of citizens and parents use board meetings to express concerns about real issues that the board and administration simply didn’t know about. For example, when a number of parents complained that recess was being taken away as punishment at elementary schools, I looked into the issue, found out it was, in fact, happening, and then notified the entire district that in no instance was that appropriate. If a number of parents hadn’t organized to come talk in public, I may have never known about this practice. I worry, however, that the recent media coverage has only encouraged some people to be even more confrontational and to rant even louder.
A vicious cycle
Typically, after public board meetings are over, board members and district staff will roll their eyes and mutter about a few annoying constituents who spoke — they tend to be repeat offenders, people who relish the chance to show up every month and spend three minutes at the microphone, wagging their fingers and shouting about some personal problem or concern that lies outside the board’s purview. Since they return month after month, board members and district administrators eventually become desensitized to their verbal assaults and skeptical of anybody who steps up to the mic and begins to speak in an urgent or angry tone. So, when a parent or community advocate expresses a legitimate complaint, the board may show little apparent interest in what they have to say. Often, they’ve taken time from their family or job to share a concern with their elected representatives, and they leave the meeting feeling that they’ve been unfairly dismissed. And that serves no one.
I’ve also seen outspoken activists use their visibility to gain a seat on the board itself, often by campaigning on the message that it’s time to hold the overpaid superintendent and other administrators accountable. Given the limited pool of people who are interested in such positions, and given the appeal of a simple message about a single issue, they frequently have no trouble winning a seat. And once in that position, they become a willing ear for every parent or advocate with a bone to pick. Only, now they have the power to order the superintendent and staff to follow up on every complaint and accusation. I have seen board members visit schools the day after a board meeting to follow up on a parent’s complaint before staff has had a chance to reach out. Some board members make themselves available to the media or post something on social media right after meetings, before the team has an opportunity to organize a coherent message. Some board members believe that the central office staff reports to them and feel entitled to go directly to a district administrator and demand answers rather than follow the chain of command. Valuable staff time is then taken away from other important work, system leaders get frustrated with the board, and board members start turning on each other, shouting over each other at public meetings or squabbling with the superintendent and staff. The public sees this dysfunction, turns against the board, and the vicious cycle continues. Unfortunately, such behavior can dissuade the kinds of activists and leaders who we’d want to have on boards from running. We need opinionated and intelligent people with ideas and vision to run for public office. Yet I’ve heard too many say, “no way,” because they’ve seen what happens at public meetings.
Too many Americans seem to believe that if our tax dollars are involved, we have the right to get into the weeds and decide exactly how that money is to be used. But that’s not how representative democracy works. School system leaders know they’re beholden to taxpayers and their elected officials who set policies and budgets according to the community’s values. They understand their role is to engage with and be responsive to politicians, the public, and (lest we forget) students and their families. But in the end, these leaders must balance multiple inputs and interests, making decisions that will, inevitably, leave some of their stakeholders unhappy. Every member of the public has the right to approach the board and make their case. However, angry outbursts only contribute sound and fury, adding nothing of use to what is already a fraught decision-making process.
This article appears in the December 2021/January 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 103, No. 4, pp. 60-61.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joshua P. Starr
Joshua P. Starr is the managing partner at the International Center for Leadership in Education, a division of HMH, based in Boston, MA. He is the author of Equity-based Leadership: Leveraging Complexity to Transform School Systems.
