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Board OKs standards to govern behavior by members
Myers calls policy a violation of right to freedom of speech
By Kate Carter
San Jose Unified School District's board last week adopted a new policy that specifies what the board and individual board members can, cannot and should do. The decision came after a majority of the five-person group voted to end discussion on the matter.
The policy was approved by a 4-1 vote at the March 22 school board meeting, with all but board Trustee Carol Myers, who represents Willow Glen, in support.
The new board policy, called the governance standards, stipulates that the board must "communicate a common vision" and that members must follow a list of provisions when talking to the public and the media. It replaces the board's code of ethics that had previously governed its behavior.
"In order to reflect new laws, regulations, court decision or legal opinions, the board found it necessary to establish a new policy regarding the governance standards," according to a report that went to board members before the meeting.
Board members had verbally approved guidelines about how they should communicate with the media at their retreat in December. The new written policy included those guidelines, as well as the California School Boards Association's governance standards and portions of the district's old code of ethics.
The board has been struggling over the past few months with how to handle recent coverage in The Resident, of questions that Myers has been raising about the way the district spends $30 million in annual state money it receives to desegregate its schools.
Board President Gary Rummelhoff said the new policy could "possibly" be in response to the "Willow Glen issue," but he emphasized that the board has been working to develop new governance standards for about two years.
"The purpose for doing this goes back several years and coincided with a review of board policies," he said. "The timing is coincidental."
Superintendent Dr. Linda Murray concurred with Rummelhoff's viewpoint.
"It's not something that just came up," she said. "It's been evolving over quite some time. Everyone is talking about standards. It's kind of the wave of the future."
The board, led by Trustee Veronica Lewis, incorporated governance standards adopted by the California School Boards Association in November, into the new policy that includes some of the board's old code of ethics, as well as some brand new items.
"We take the best of what existed and the issues important to this local board and these new governance standards, and blend them together," Murray said.
The association, a nonprofit organization whose members include almost every school board in the state, has spent the past two years establishing governance standards to guide its members. The association's policy is intended to be a starting point for school districts, said spokesman James Morante, and uses "language that is broader than what will be adopted by each district."
The association mailed its governance standards to its members last week, he said. San Jose Unified's board adopted all the association's recommendations and even passed a resolution last week, in support of its standards.
Murray and Rummelhoff say that San Jose Unified is at the forefront of creating ways to hold itself accountable, even as it and state officials call for more accountability by schools, teachers and students.
"We're actually ahead of the curve right now," Rummelhoff said. "We've had a history over the last four or five years of trying to be out in front of these things. The board wants to make some positive and leading steps in this effort, as in other efforts, like graduation requirements."
The district's new policy is intended to guide the board in working effectively to represent the needs of all the district's students, Rummelhoff said.
"These are a guide for how individual board members should operate and how the board as a team should operate together and the role that the board has," he said.
Rummelhoff said that problems arise when a single board member tries to advocate solely for students in his or her own trustee area. He said that San Jose Unified's board is the only one in the county that has trustee areas.
"I think there's a fine difference between the way boards act and traditionally elected positions which rule in a broad geographically representative manner," Rummelhoff said. "Each of us needs to work for the common good."
Myers told The Resident she opposed the new policy because she said it seems to restrict free speech.
"This is my personal opinion," Myers said, "but I think they want to stifle any kind of open discussion on desegregation and the effect it has on schools in Willow Glen. That's the bottom line. What they're saying essentially is that members can't say anything controversial."
Her particular concern at the meeting was over the word "undermine" in an item of the policy that reads: "That board members can answer questions of the media but not undermine the decision and credibility of the board."
She told the board that she found the word to be vague and that the entire statement and several others suggested that members could not voice dissenting opinions.
Board Member Jorge Rodriguez said it is fine to voice disagreement, but involving the neighborhoods or the media "is taking it to the next step." He said that disagreeing with a board decision should not include efforts to actively change it.
Rummelhoff said at the meeting and later told The Resident that the board is using the word "undermine" to mean "to disrupt implementation or make factual misstatements" about the board's actions.
He said he was unaware of any intentionally misleading statements published in The Resident.
Rummelhoff said he understood Myers' concerns, but believed that they were adequately addressed by the rest of the board.
He said that Trustee Rich Garcia was correct to call for an end to the discussion and a vote on the item--something that Rummelhoff, as president, couldn't do.
The board then voted 4-1 to end the debate and then voted 4-1 to approve the governance standards, with Myers dissenting both times.
Myers could bring the issue back up for discussion, but Rummelhoff said it was unlikely that she would be able to get the necessary majority approval.
Rummelhoff said that the policy was not a violation of board members' First Amendment rights.
"We always have to be careful of free speech," he said. "There's no effort to infringe on free speech. Each can speak on their own behalf, but not on the board's behalf. We want to make sure that we have good relations with the media."
Rummelhoff said that board members voicing their differences in the media can sometimes impede the board's ability to do its job.
"In some ways the media can become sort of complicit in that," he said.
He also said that a majority of the board could censure any board member whose behavior it interprets as violating the governance standards.
Myers told The Resident that she is "trying not to be too obnoxious. All I'm really trying to do is just inform the public of what's happening" and the effect she says desegregation is having on Willow Glen schools.
She said that the district's public engagement initiative and community conversations it holds to establish better communication with people outside the district and its schools is done only on the district's terms.
"Where does public engagement end and the board expressing its opinion begin?" she asked. "Especially on something that we should really be engaging the public."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
