Charter school issue brings out supporters, critics
What was expected to be a discussion of an audit of the city Charter School System at Monday night’s City Council meeting turned heated between Mayor Marni Sawicki and school Superintendent Nelson Stephenson.
Facebook postings and Stephenson’s going public in response to public records requests by Sawicki lighted the match. After dozens of students, parents, teachers and even Charter School Governing Board members queued up to the podium with both praise and criticism of the current administration, Stephenson and Sawicki faced off trading barbs and allegations, at times talking over each other.
Stephenson walked away from the fray by saying, “You know what, I’m not going to respond to any more on this, in the interest of professionalism I’m going to take the high road.”
After conversations with Sawicki, Stephenson says he feared for his job when he says the mayor went on the attack with public records requests asking about teacher turnover rates and a request to rehire a teacher whose contract was not renewed in 2015-16. Sawicki said she did not request or demand Stephenson rehire the teacher. The requests also sought information about the hiring of Stephenson and Oasis High School principal Shannon Treece.
Charter School Board member Rob Zivkovic said, “The previous principal wanted to let some teachers go, but didn’t out of fear of political consequences. Principal Treece came in made the tough decisions and did what was right. Since then, it has proved the previous principal was wrong. It was done for the students’ benefit, not political reasons.”
Sawicki charged that the overflow crowd was brought to the meeting under false pretenses that changed the intended school system audit report discussion.
Councilmember Richard Leon said the issue could have been avoided had the mayor written a background memo mentioning the topic she wanted to discuss when she put the item on the agenda. Leon asked to postpone the discussion on that basis, but his request was rejected.
Later, Sawicki went on the attack against fellow council members who made Facebook posts about the matter, singling out council members Rana Erbrick, Richard Leon and Jessica Cosden.
Sawicki said she was tired of it and if any more posts were made she would file a defamation lawsuit.
“I resent the fact I have elected officials or two that write things on Facebook they know nothing about,” Sawicki said.
Sawicki said Leon made comments indicating the mayor was overstepping her authority and that her behavior was hurting the image of the city and the school.
Leon said he has no intention of curbing his social media activity.
Sawicki criticized Erbrick for “liking” derogatory comments about the mayor, and Cosden for sweeping under the rug issues brought up by students. Corsden serves council as chair of the charter governing board.
Cosden replied that to her knowledge the board has never denied any student or parent to voice their concerns.
Sawicki requested and received approval to request the city manager, legal and audit team create a best practices plan of checks and balances for the charter school to take the politics out of the equation.
The emotional discussion was expected to continue Tuesday morning when the Charter School Governing Board met to review the school audit.
At that meeting Stephenson apologized for what happened at the Monday night Council meeting, saying he wanted to get together soon with council to get on same page.
Stephenson reprimanded by Vice Chair Robert Zivkovic for not using chain of command before speaking to media.