29 Nov 2007, Barbara DeHart and DeLacy Derin Ganley
[This is an abstract of a paper given at the symposium School Board Research: Main Lines of Inquiry in Des Moines, Iowa, September 14-15, 2007. This abstract provides an overview of the paper. The full paper is published in Relevancy and Revelation: The Future of School Board Governance, by Rowman and Littlefield, Spring 2008.]
This descriptive case study highlights the problems created when a three-two majority alliance was formed on the five-member board of trustees of the Northville School District, a medium-sized (10,250 students), suburban/urban, elementary (PreK-8) school district in Southern California. The crisis began when the newly-formed three member Board Majority were presented with and then spurned a legal mandate to revise the District’s Uniform Complaint Procedure Policy (UCPP). This mandated revision would have assured compliance to new state and federal laws that granted “protected class status” to transgender and transsexual students (herein referred to as transgender/sexual students).
In California, the Uniform Complaint Procedure Policy (UCPP) delineates specific procedures for persons of “protected classes” to file a discrimination complaint against a public PreK-12 school district. The UCPP is called a “uniform policy” because all public PreK-12 districts in California are subject to the same laws and, accordingly, every district’s UCPP is supposed to be identical to one another in terms of language and interpretation. As required by law, Northville’s UCPP already extended protected class status to students who experienced unlawful discrimination because of their ethnic group identification, religion, age, sexual orientation, race, ancestry, national origin, gender, color, or disability (physical or mental). The new mandated language changes being rejected by the Board Majority would, as dictated by law, now also extend protected class status to transgender/sexual students and would therefore allow transgender/sexual students to file a discrimination complaint if they felt they had been harassed.
During School Board meetings, the rhetoric of the Board Majority revealed its reluctance to protect the rights of other-than-heterosexual students. Questions asked included Where will little boys dressed as little girls go to the bathroom? What will prevent “these children” from becoming “Peeping Toms?” (Minutes, Special Meeting, February 26, 2004, 7.1 p. 3+; Board Minutes, February 5, 2004, 7.1 p. 9+). One Board member publicly referred to transgender/sexual people as “trash” (Board Minutes, February 5, 2004, p.88). Another Board Majority member (who was, coincidently, a chaplain) fretted about the “sexual” and “homosexual agenda” and wondered how she would “answer to a higher power” if she were to vote in favor of revising the policy (Board Minutes, February 4, 2004).
Along with threatening the civil rights of transgender/sexual students, not being in compliance with state and federal laws endangered the District’s financial viability. The California Department of Education threatened to withhold all state and federal funding, which District officials estimated at over $51 million.
When the Board Majority’s act of non-compliance became known to the public at large, many in the community objected with furor. Attendance at School Board meetings ballooned to over a thousand. At these meetings people shouted, jeered, and waved poster-board statements. The media swarmed. Police in bulletproof vests were called in to maintain the order.
This descriptive case study is important for four main reasons: First, it narrates a story that shows the importance of school board elections and the potential abuse of power of elected board members and, in doing so, serves as a call-to-action to voters. Second, it can be used as a tool for discussing issues of social justice and the politicalization of education. Third, it contributes to the field of educational policy by examining the relationship among school board politics, educational law, and social justice. And, lastly, it speaks to the inconsistency and impotency of public school governance in California and beyond. A number of poignant questions specifically designed to facilitate dialogue can be found at the end of the study.
Methodologically, this qualitative case study draws upon participation-based research. One of the study’s co-authors was Northville School District’s Superintendent during this period. Data was gathered through participant observation and organizational documents. Specifically, the case draws upon notes, recollections, and insights as well as upon a number of articles of public record, including Board of Trustee meeting minutes, correspondence, memoranda, and newspaper articles. The variety of data triangulates the research findings and provides balance to the data analysis. These methods assure the case study that unfolds is an accurate story of the political passions and agendas of school board members in discord and dissent. With this said, we also recognize that, as Bates notes in relation to his own work, “recollections [of the case], not surprisingly, differ” (1993, p. 13).
The case study below is in the form of a chronologically-based narrative. It begins with a contextual history; explains the events directly leading up to the crisis; chronicles the most contentious four months; provides a report of the current status of the case’s main characters; and then concludes with a list of questions to facilitate conversation.
Key Words/Phrases
School board non-compliance
State and federal compliance
Civil liberties
Transgender/sexual students
Stealth candidates