Public meeting on schools: A gathering, but is it a team?

Who will be sitting here after the April school election?

As Plainfield's Board of Ed race looms on the horizon, about 60 people joined organizer Renata Hernandez Monday evening in a public meeting on the schools entitled 'Taking our schools back'.

Some Plainfield Today readers have been fretting about Hernandez' activity and the nature of the meeting, as in this anonymous comment posted yesterday (see here) --

This is a political event being masked as a community meeting. Ms. Hernandez even stated that the Superintendent might be asked to leave if he attend. How can this be a community meeting on schools and the superintendent be asked to leave?

If that becomes the case this meeting will be just another political hoax.

I have to confess I don't quite get it -- this is America; gathering to express our views and organizing to influence public policy or the outcome of elections is as American as apple pie (not to mention constitutionally protected), and if it is to mean anything at all, it has to be a right of the folks you don't like as well as those you do. Am I wrong?

At any rate and despite my fearful commentator, I would say the meeting was part pep-talk and part tutorial, but probably not a campaign meeting outright.

Why not?

Because while there were avowed candidates in the room, and they spoke and their candidacy was disclosed, it did not seem to me to be a 'team' event.

Each presenter focused on a single topic --

• Candidate Renata Hernandez outlined the gathering's goal;
  
  
• Former BOE member (and candidate) Rasheed Abdul-Haqq spoke of leadership qualities needed in Board members -- including good intentions, faith, working to develop unified efforts, and 'a lot of common sense';
  
  
• Teacher Paul Pannone, who has been with the District since 1969, explained Robert's Rules of Order (used by the BOE) are designed to provide a format for structured, articulate debate, and that the public should make some effort to understand them to make the BOE andpublic interactions more fruitful;
  
  
• Candidate Dani Fletcher spoke about the importance of school elections, and the low number who turn out (1,600 in April 2009, versus 14.000+ who voted for Obama in Novem,ber 2008), urging people to vote and get others to do so, too;
  
  
• Board member Wilma Campbell entertained the crowd with lists of important (and some less so) FIVES in history and pop culture, all designed to focus attention on the importance of having FIVE Board members who can 'think critically based on facts'... 'five like-minded people who will vote for the children of this District' (she was high-fived by many as she left the podium to take her seat);
  
  
• PHS Debate Team coach and teacher Jeff Truitt, who has more than 26 years with the District, spoke about the 'privilege of the floor' segment of the public meetings; but his most compelling moments were relating how his students are both fascinated and perplexed by the 'Shame' segment on Fox News, and not being able to understand 'why the Board is not upset' (to be fair, the Board is legally constrained about what it CAN say about the situation -- DD); he also noted that Plainfield's demographics are changing dramatically and one key to success will be involving Latino stakeholders (not very much in evidence among the audience);
  
  
• Lastly, Connie Buwa of the Obama School, provided a view of the situation from one teacher's perch -- in particular, that the Obama students to get short shrift from attention to their overall educational needs all the way down to textbooks.

While the situation with Dr. Gallon hung over the meeting, it was mostly in the background, and occasional references pointed more to a perception he has 'disrespected' those on the ground than any critical analysis of where his policies and initiatives are wrongheaded.

Speaker after speaker focused on the current board and their unhappiness with it.

'Change' was invoked more than once, but will last evening's meeting lead to the evidently desired change -- voting out the incumbents and replacing them?

It's possible. Using the 'rule of 10', it would be a good guess that that are probably 600 or so folks in the community at the moment who share the concerns of those who came out last night.

The trick will be how do you find, recruit and mobilize those folks?

There was talk of going door-to-door.

That is certainly necessary, but the first steps -- if we can draw a lesson from President Obama's election campaign -- are to have

• a mantra that motivates,
  
  
• a concise agenda for change committed to by all the candidates,
  
  
• a team that works aggressively on the ground, and maybe
  
  
• just a little bit of luck.

If the candidates and their supporters who came out last night can manage to take these steps they might just sweep the board.

Then, like President Obama, they would have to govern.

And that is, as they say, 'a whole 'nother kettle of fish'.

---

• Plainfield Today: "Tonight's meeting on schools turns up heat on BOE race"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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