Partisan Politics in School Committee

On Tuesday, Feb. 20, Cambridge parents, teachers and all who were watching the cablecast of the School Committee meeting witnessed a shameful display of partisan politics. Members Duehay, Simmons, Segat and Turkel, the supposed enlightened members of the committee, had privately decided to elect a vice chair. Despite the objections of David Maher and Joseph Grassi that a motion for such an election was out of order because it did not appear on the Feb. 20 meeting agenda and therefore failed to provide notice to interested persons, Acting Chair Duehay allowed a motion by Alice Turkel, seconded by Susana Segat to elect Denice Simmons as vice chair of the committee.

I challenged the ruling of the chair and asked for an opinion from the executive secretary of the school committee, Claire Rodley, who often advises the committee as parliamentarian on matters of procedure. Ms. Rodley agreed that the election of a vice chair should be brought before the committee as new business and be discussed at its next regularly-scheduled meeting. Whereupon Duehay, in a display of power politics, overruled the opinion of the parliamentarian and proceeded to take a vote on the motion.

Perhaps those who were present at this year's swearing-in-ceremony of the members of the school committee will recall that the newly-elected members of the committee, Turkel and Segat, stressed the importance of school committee members working as a team in order to provide the best possible education for the schoolchildren of Cambridge. It is therefore unfortunate that the first major motion by these newly-elected members served to foster divisiveness and division rather than the collegiality and cooperation that they are mouthing in their public statements to Cambridge parents and taxpayers.

As far as Mr. Duehay is concerned, if his performance on Feb. 20 as acting chair of the school committee is any indication of his objectivity, as the senior member of the school committee. I urge the City Council to provide our committee with a permanent chair who seeks to promote cooperation among members rather than create an atmosphere of discord and ill-will. --Alfred B. Fantini,   Member,   Cambridge School Committee