By Diane Payne
The Board held its sixth remote Action meeting on May 28 as the Covid-19 crisis continues to necessitate quarantine. The Board has taken a Shock Doctrine approach to leadership by arbitrarily, without explanation, changing the procedures for public speaking. These changes, obviously, have no bearing on public safety. In violation of its own policy, one approved by unanimous vote only 6 months ago, the Board has whittled down the public’s three minutes of speaking time to two. In another violation, the Board allowed only three speakers on a topic. The policy allows for four. At the November 2019 Policy Committee meeting, APPS co-founder Lisa Haver objected to the Board’s proposal to eliminate the public speakers’ provision of the meeting policy. Her concern was that it would leave this important public process subject to capricious changes at the whim of the Board. Unfortunately, Haver’s fears were prescient. Again, there is no health and safety reason for reducing the number of public speakers. APPS calls on the Board to cease violating its own policy and reinstate the public’s full three minutes to speak and the number of speakers on topics back to four.
Board Officers Elected
The Board is operating with only eight members as Mayor Kenney has not replaced Chris McGinley. For some reason, Mayor Kenney has said that his Nominating Panel must reconvene even though this panel submitted names of 27 candidates just months ago. It is unclear why the panel must start all over. The Board elected officers at this first meeting of the new term. Joyce Wilkerson was re-elected President, Leticia Egea-Hinton elected Vice-President. The Mayor’s replacement for Wayne Walker, Akeem Akbar, participated in his first full Action Meeting. The remaining Board members: Julia Danzy, Mallory Fix Lopez, Lee Huang, Maria McColgan, and Angela McIver were also all present for this remote platform meeting. Student representatives Imere Williamson and Doha Abrahim also attended.
Minutes of the April meeting were approved.
Seven APPS members spoke in defense of public education at this meeting; one member submitted written testimony. This testimony can be viewed on the APPS website
Click here to read the rest of the report.
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools 