Heights and Shaker BoE's ask "where's the bun?" in special joint session.
February's public meeting saw members of both boards focusing largely on an issue that the local community never asked about.
There’s a famous commercial for Wendy’s that aired before my time where three elderly ladies look at a hamburger bun and ask “where’s the beef?” It’s been established that when the leadership of the CHUH school district set their mind to it, there is no issue that they will not exploit for political purposes, even if it’s full of empty carbs. Whether it is the fact that they dedicate a section of their website to encouraging parents to fight the EdChoice program, promoting an equity education content program that is chock full of racist demagoguery from the likes of the Zinn Education Project and Waking Up White, or allowing a political ad for the school board election explicitly supporting candidates by name to be filmed on campus, there is no depth to which they will not descend. On February 1 they managed to loop in Shaker Heights BoE for a joint session on an urgent topic. It might not be urgent for the students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers of the district, but it sure is if you are a sitting member of a school board and want to attend some fun events in destination cities!
On the joint agenda for the evening the two boards had an audience with two higher ups from the Ohio School Boards Association from Columbus, Rick Lewis (CEO) and Robert Heard (President). The impetus for this audience was in order to inform CHUH and Shaker Heights on the issues regarding the OSBA’s recent decision to disaffiliate with the National School Boards Association last October, and whether the two districts would remain OSBA members. I would contend that the issue could have been dealt with during a public video conference or some other special session rather than using this month’s only regular public meeting for that purpose; but then again I was unable to attend the meeting as I’d planned. This issue had earlier been raised by CHUH BoE member Dan Heintz during the January open session.
While the NSBA’s conflict with member state counterparts makes for interesting political fodder, I would ask whether for residents of the district it really makes a difference that we are a member of OSBA, or that OSBA is a member of the NSBA. Nevertheless I did find the discussion fascinating as Heard and Lewis arrived fully willing to outline and discuss the full history of the state-federal organizations’ relationship and why it had decided to terminate the relationship. It is well known today that a September letter by NSBA President Viola Garcia and CEO Chip Slaven calling on the US Department of Justice to investigate disgruntled public school parents under the Patriot Act helped trigger a mass exodus of state associations from NSBA.
What about our conventions?
During the course of the conversation, Heintz, Jodie Sourini, and Malia Lewis all expressed their chagrin at the fact that they could no longer attend NSBA conferences. It should be noted that Sourini mentioned meeting Heard in 2018 during the NSBA conference in San Antonio and Heintz referenced a confrontation he had with him in 2019 at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Philadelphia in which he objected to OSBA holding a party to celebrate the national championship game in the lobby. Heintz’s pointed objection to Heard about this activity was made in response to the OSBA president’s claims about NSBA having top-heavy executive compensation and an unsteady financial structure. Based on the dates in question (March 27-29, 2019), Heintz was objecting to the OSBA participating or holding a hotel viewing party for. . . the regional semifinals of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament.
As Heintz had said in January, the CHUH BoE derives a lot of value from the NSBA conferences and the OSBA Capitol Conference, and it would be fair to assume that its members would rather be able to go to both. But what is the actual value of these activities to the district? We do not know because unlike the board of trustees, member districts are not privy to the full breadth of deliberations at either the National SBA or the Ohio SBA. They are both private non-profit organizations, and as such the best place to glean information is on their conference sites. Here is the list of some of the recent NSBA conferences (click links for more information):
2017 - Denver, CO
2018 - San Antonio, TX
2019 - Philadelphia, PA
2020 - Cancelled/online
2021 - Cancelled/online
2022 - San Diego
All of those destinations have their appeal, plus complementary lunches. (Is the school district footing the bill for the annual conferences? I asked CFO Scott Gainer through a public records request and have yet to receive and answer) The “Experiential Learning Visits” that are offered cost $200 per person. Besides those more specific activities, at past conferences it is not well known what the topics were for the informational and “study hall” sessions in past years; in 2017 for example there were there three keynote speakers including Arianna Huffington and a drum circle at the end of the third day. The 2018 conference seemed to deal much more with issues concerning NSBA and its sub-group the Organization of State Association Executive Directors.
Forgetting what state we live in
The OSBA Capital Conference is also an annual event that the BoE members have attended every November in Columbus, except 2020 when it was held virtually due to COVID. And while obviously that’s not as exotic a destination as San Diego, it would seem that the conference themes are fairly consistent with the type of values that the Heights BoE has promoted. In 2021 they had workshops on:
School-justice partnerships for equity.
Breakfast improves student outcomes.
Transitioning treasurers.
Closing gaps that matter
These along with others offered a plethora of great opportunities for CHUH and other boards to share ideas and network based on common concerns. Bear in mind, these might not be the same concerns as yours or mine as a district resident, but nevertheless they are an important way to judge exactly what OSBA promotes. When it was also asked by Malia Lewis whether by leaving NSBA Ohio would be forfeiting important lobbying efforts on its behalf for broadband expansion, Heard responded with a surprising claim: that it was the state associations and not NSBA that did the lobbying in Washington, DC with individual members of Congress. It’s difficult to know if this is actually true, because neither organization is actually registered as a lobbying organization but OSBA actually lists a person on its staff as a lobbyist.
Leave it to our own Inspector Clouseau on the BoE, Mr. Dan Heintz, to figure out the real point behind Ohio’s exit from NSBA. After hearing from Heard regarding the decision process behind this and questioning the method of communicating with members of the OSBA as well as setting up a new federation of state school board associations, Heintz got to his theory:
“This really important decision to sever ties to sever access with the NSBA; I’m very wary of participating in activities from this new national district chartered in North Carolina made up of states that are overwhelmingly Trump states.”
It seems that we have gotten to the beating heart of every conversation or topic in the world from 2016 until eternity: the 45th President, Donald Trump, the Michael Myers that chases Dan Heintz through his dreams with a Trump branded kitchen knife. Apparently Cleveland Heights-University Heights is in danger of being enveloped by his evil eminence by - of all things - the splintering of a trade association for school boards that has no actual administrative effect on how our district is managed. How do we “unpack” this as Heintz would say?
First of all, as Heard himself pointed out in response to this, several of the states that have withdrawn from NSBA anything but “Trump states”. New Hampshire, Virginia, and Illinois voted for the Democrat in both 2016 and 2020. Two others while not withdrawing expressed harsh criticism over the NSBA letter to the DOJ: New Jersey and President Biden’s own home state, Delaware.
Other states are what one could call “battlegrounds”: Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania. Each of them voted Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Suggesting that the three are “Trump states” would be construed by most cable news analysts as a conspiracy theory and Q Anon-sense.
Compounding his already reductive reasoning, Heintz concluded that this new group would be a “Trump state” organization because it was chartered in North Carolina. But by this logic, why should CHUH be affiliated with the OSBA at all? Ohio voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020 by eight point margins, larger than either North Carolina any of the swing states from 2016. If being in a state that voted for Trump is a stain on the reputation of its school board association, and our school district is in a state that voted for him twice, Heintz should have just lobbied to leave the OSBA without wasting the BoE or public’s time talking to its leaders.
Vouchers Uber Alles
Some of those questioning Heard and Lewis did make interesting points. Jodie Sourini for example disputed Heard’s assertion that district participation in NSBA was 5%, stating that in 2018 there were many more school boards than that at the conference. Shaker board member Emmitt Jolly asked whether it was appropriate for the OSBA to withdraw as a result of a letter it wasn’t consulted on while itself not consulting with its full membership. The nature of a breakup includes internal conflicts, and certainly both Shaker and Heights school districts are well within their rights to determine whether continued membership in the OSBA is worthwhile.
What it is hard to maintain however is that the reasons brought forward by Heintz have any basis in truth. At one point in an exchange with Heard he steered it toward his pet issue: EdChoice vouchers.
HEARD: Everything we’ve talked about since square one is to avoid anything political like it’s a third rail.
HEINTZ: So legislation at the national level is not political?
HEARD: The items that we’re identifying are -- are going to be germaine to public education—
HEINTZ: Are vouchers political?
HEARD: Right now we don’t have that on the list of the - uh - the national one because well—
HEINTZ: Well, you really should.
HEARD: It’s a work in progress. . . we’ve been together — you know — just ten weeks right now. . . [U]m, I’m certain vouchers are going to be the issue that’s probably as much of a legal and a legislative issue, but I’m not certain what the political issues you’re — you’re alluding to that you think we might be lobbying for.
Heintz went on to rattle off a number of topics such as funding, violence, guns, and “access to services”. This would be a legitimate complaint but for the fact that the OSBA itself is advocating or at least providing a forum for a number of those very issues. In October 2021 it published a hand-out for the Capital Conference that was produced by Vouchers Hurt Ohio, the same organization behind the lawsuit that CHUH is engaged in. This informational session effectively served as a recruitment seminar for districts to join the lawsuit as well as VHO and the related Equity & Adequacy organizations.
As for school violence and gun issues, I would question how if at all the NSBA has been involved in this issue that would cause Heintz to think that the district is losing a resource by not being in a member state association. Other than publish statements in the wake of school shootings and articles that cover it from a journalistic perspective, the group has very little material addressing this topic.
Leaving a sinking ship?
The primary complaint that Heard and Lewis voiced about NSBA had been its financial stewardship. Notwithstanding Heintz’s complaint about a “swanky” NCAA tournament party, for the last year of public financial disclosures available (2019) the OSBA was able to net $768 thousand, whereas the NSBA was running total liabilities of $28 million after accruing debts from past years. It has ten executive officers with salaries exceeding six figures, compared to seven for the OSBA. The NSBA charges $100,000 to each state SBA for membership while the OSBA has a membership dues schedule based on district enrollment.
As residents of the district, this issue is somewhat of a distraction. It is a good question what we get out of membership in either group when their purpose is to function as a trade organization for board members, and we may be paying for their participation. Also, did our board members not find it objectionable that the NSBA authored the DOJ letter comparing parents at meetings to domestic terrorists?
Message to the reader
We share in the Heights a great place to live and work, but it’s seen better days. The current school district leadership, rather than working to improve the performance of the students and attract new ones, is dead set on blaming external factors for which they cannot be held accountable. The articles here in the Miramar Scar are meant to show the real face of the Board of Education and administration rather than the one featured on glossy promotional materials in your mailbox that are supposed to tell you everything is great. Please do me a favour and share this article, subscribe for articles straight to your email, and comment so we know your thoughts. You can also email me directly if you want me to cover an issue important to you.