School Board Member Johanna Wright said she does not plan
to stop her practice of voting against many items on the board agendas and
blocking action with in-depth questions, saying “I think discussion is healthy,
and I never mean to be contentious in my discussions.”
But her efforts have aggravated both board members and
some residents, while earning her praise among others who say her contrarian
approach is needed.
“This is my duty to make sure the children who come
through now get the best education they can.”
We wrote about Wright’s last board meeting in which she
objected to the change in district health coverage, despite a $600,000 savings,
and claimed a requested reduction in teacher evaluations was wrong.
“When I’m questioning things I’m not trying to be rude or
bring anyone down," she said. "I am just getting to the facts and we should all want the
facts.”
After our previous story, Wright requested a chance to respond
and explain herself. In a lengthy interview with Maplewoodian.com, she stood by
her efforts and said she seeks to question board actions because she considers
many of the moves incorrect.
She also said that as a former South Orange Maplewood
Education Association member and the parent of a district teacher (her
daughter, Jazmine, teaches 8th grade science at South Orange Middle
School) she is barred from voting on many items. She did not indicate what percentage
of votes she has had to miss, but said she cannot be involved in teachers union
negotiations or vote on the recently forged new contract.
She also said she was not allowed to be involved in the
negotiations that went into hiring new Superintendent John Ramos or vote on his
hiring.
“They tell me, ‘you can’t vote for this,’ and I go, ‘okay’
and they’ll just skip me or whatever,” Wright said. “It is usually the board
attorney (Philip Stern) along with the superintendent, which would have been
Mr. Memoli and then (Business Administrator) Cheryl Schneider, the three of
them would come to me and tell me what I could or couldn’t do.”
We reached out to district officials asking why and when
Wright is asked to abstain, but have yet to hear back.
Wright, who said she would like the board to expand to
two meetings per month instead of one so that more issues can be handled before
it gets late, said she often votes against the entire consent “action items”
agenda because it is such a broad vote.
“When you consider that the board president puts
everything in one slate for one vote for our board you either have to vote for
everything or nothing,” she said. “I sometimes have a very difficult time
getting a second to even sever something for discussion. It’s a fait accompli
when you get down to that part.
There may be some items in there that I don’t
agree with, and so I vote the way I do and I don’t mean to be contentious, but
I don’t really like being lied to.”
That opposition occurred at the last meeting when Wright
delayed a vote on the new Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield health care plan,
claiming she had researched a cheaper deal with Integrity Health Insurance.
“It’s a huge, huge budget item,” she said. “I had done a
lot of homework in terms of the health insurance.”
But several board members objected to her complaints,
which ended in an approval vote with her as the lone opposition.
“We could have saved over a million dollars, not
$600,000, that was not even stated by looking at another plan,” she said. “It
was recommended by the board consultant that we go with Horizon in a private plan,
I hadn’t seen the plan at all yet. The whole process wasn’t done the way I
would have done.”
On the teacher evaluations, she claimed, “if we’re not
doing well and the state mandates that you do three evaluations, why are we now
not wanting to go in and do as much as you can in evaluating staff. Everybody
gets to a point where they become stagnant. There may be something that I may
have done for years that may be out of date.”
That objection also fell flat as the board approved the
request for fewer evaluations for tenured teachers. Assistant Superintendent
James Memoli had said the request was aimed at allowing more time to focus on troubled
teachers rather than those that continue to perform well.
Known as “Mama Wright” to many students, Wright was at SOMS
from 1981 to 2012, teaching health education, physical education and science, while
also coaching girls basketball and cheerleading. She was elected to the school
board in 2013 and immediately made an impact with her brash style and demands
for information. But when reading board acknowledgements at the start of each meeting,
no one is more enthusiastic and congratulatory toward students and teachers who
receive the notice.
“I’ve served on many boards and this one is certainly
unique,” she said. “I’m a coach, I’m used to team building. I wasn’t just a
coach, I’m a winning coach, I’m a hall of fame coach. I know how to team build,
but people have to be willing to want to have that team. I came on the board
with enthusiasm to work together and get things done.”
Asked about the work of Superintendent Ramos after the
first month, she said, “I didn’t vet him. I don’t know. I reserve judgment on
everybody. It was a wonderful school opening this year and it was the first
time in many years that I can remember looking at the staff and their faces and
being perplexed and happy at the same time that this is the first time when
everybody was together for the first day.”
She said she does not mean to come off rude or in way
that might offend, but adds, “If I‘m talking about something you can best
believe it is important. I’m sure there maybe was another way I could have
brought something up, but I have always looked through everything thoroughly.”
“I want people to hold me accountable,” she said, noting
she plans to run again next year. “I’m going to run until this district is back
where it needs to be.”
1 comment:
Thanks, Joe, for running this. It was appalling to watch Beth Daugherty isolate and exclude Wright. I hope things have finally turned a corner.
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