It’s been one year since parents criticized officials in the Kingston City School District KCSD) for dragging their feet in adhering to New York State Shared Decision-Making requirements, and they report that nothing has improved. But a new wrinkle has emerged, with some saying a drafting committee is stacked with advocates focused on a single elementary school.
Over two meetings of the KCSD Board of Education last month, George Washington (GW) Elementary parents have chided the district for holding closed decision-making meetings in violation of Open Meetings Law, of fostering a dismissive environment meant to discourage dialogue, and of failing to support the Montessori program in their children’s school.
At a school board meeting held on Wednesday, November 6, Mariel Fiori, managing editor of La Voz and vice-president of George Washington’s PTO, said a recent meeting where consultants shared data on district schools in need of improvement was not publicly announced, and that she only learned of the meeting though word of mouth. The district was also accused of holding similarly unannounced meetings last year by Britta Riley, parent of two kids in the KCSD.
At a school board meeting on Wednesday, November 20, Riley claimed she’d been forced out of her role as a committee representative for George Washington Elementary by district officials.
“I wrote back asking what agreement or policy I had allegedly violated,” Riley said. “The response I received did not cite any violations but referred to some subcommittee protocols that this committee has never discussed.”
She said she attended the final meeting of the committee on Tuesday, November 19 anyway, and was “verbally challenged” by and administrator when she tried to speak. Though none of the speakers mentioned the administrator by name, deputy superintendent for teaching and learning Kirk Reinhardt is on the committee.
“Fourteen people scrambled to be there at the last minute to literally stand up with me and with the state mandated rights I’m advocating for in a moment when I was facing what could be viewed as intimidation and retaliation and in a set of circumstances that one parent observer called out as a conflict of interest,” Riley said. “These fourteen people were working parents, my constituents from my school, as well as some from other schools, teachers, community partners, students and taxpayers. They brilliantly spoke to the importance of this process and one said this is what democracy looks like.”
Riley asked the school board for oversight of the administration and impartial mediation of the shared decision-making plan drafting process.
Since 1994, the state Department of Education (NYSED) has required school districts to approve a shared decision-making plan, then filed with the district’s county BOCES before final approval at the state level. NYSED recommends that administrators, member of the school board trustees, community members, parents, teachers, teaching assistants, support staff and students should be included in the process whenever possible.
Committees of the shared decision-making body cover subjects such as accountability, budgeting, communication, community involvement, extracurricular programming, health and safety, parent involvement, student performance and in-school procedures. Committees may also help set the standards to evaluate student improvement in standardized testing, graduation rates, attendance and physical, social and emotional growth.
“Our district has been out of compliance with its responsibility to iron out this role for parents and teachers for 30 years,” said Riley.
At the November 20 meeting, Fiori said the committee’s facilitator, as a district administrator was not impartial, and at the November 19 meeting behaved unprofessionally.
“Yesterday, after just 15 minutes into the meeting he adjourned the session in frustration over questions and suggestions raised by parent delegates,” Fiori said. “It became clear that he was unable to separate his administrative duties from his role as facilitator … On several occasions the facilitator stated that he felt attacked by questions that were in fact important, valid and necessary to clarify the drafting of a document that took the district 30 years to develop and align with New York State law.”
Fellow parent Timand Bates said parents simply wanted to have a voice in the shared decision-making process.
“I believe everyone involved in the education of Kingston’s children has the best of intentions,” he said. “Parents who are calling for an increased role in the governance of our school’s curricular policies do not question the devotion of the teachers or the administrators. We are simply asking for a seat at the table because at the end of the day Kingston schools are not functioning as well as they should.”
Bates said he believed the district has tried to minimize and undermine its Montessori program since at least 2017.
“Despite what we’re told about all the money and effort that goes into the program, one of the most highly trained teachers was reassigned, not by her choice, not with any parent input and she left the school,” he said. “So the best teacher you all had doing Montessori at GW was pushed out. Now the children sit in rows. They do worksheets. And in her place is a new teacher, someone new to teaching who has not had any Montessori training — this is by her own admission.”
But not everyone saw the November 19 committee meeting the same way. Bonnie Van Kleeck is president of the Kingston Teachers Federation and a member of the shared decision-making committee.
“There are people that are on that committee, it appears to me that are looking out for the needs of one building and not the entire district, and because they didn’t get what they wanted, they’re calling foul play,” Van Kleeck said. “And I don’t think that’s fair to all the people, all the parents and all the administrators that are on that committee who were doing all this hard work and giving up their own time.”
District administrators could not be reached for comment.
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