Eight days later, Governor Charlie Baker returned the bill
unsigned, an action known as a pocket veto, having accepted the argument that
the bill would weaken the authority granted to school superintendents and
principals under the state’s momentous, acclaimed Education Reform Act of 1993.
Given the opposition of superintendents and principals to
the bill -- House Bill 2319, An Act
Relative to Protecting the Rights of
Custodial and Other Non-Teaching Employees of School Districts -- I’m
trying to figure out how the advocates for the bill got it passed during
informal sessions.
Only “non-controversial” measures are supposed to be taken
up during “informals.” Under the rules
and customs of the Massachusetts legislature, if only one legislator present objects
to voting on a bill in an informal session, the presiding officer must
immediately table it for the entire session.
At that moment it is considered dead for the day.
The Republicans, as members of the minority party in the
legislature, always send at least one member to every informal session whose
specific job is to object if a controversial bill is unexpectedly brought
up. Controversial, in this context,
means anything that does not enjoy unanimous support.
It looks like the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents
was caught by surprise here.
My guess is that the association, at the July 31 conclusion
of formal legislative sessions, made the reasonable judgment that HB 2319 could
not possibly get done during upcoming informal sessions; therefore, it did not
see the need to impress upon sympathetic Republicans and Democrats alike the
need to be on guard against it.
Once the bill did slip across the legislative finish line, I
surmise that the association swung into action in the governor’s suite, bringing
about the pocket veto and quelling for now the rebellion of the custodians: the governor’s action spelled the doom of HB
2319 because veto overrides are held only during formal sessions.
As just one result of the Education Reform Act of 1993,
public school principals were given the power to “supervise the operation and
management of their schools and school property, subject to the supervision and
direction of the superintendent.”
The law inserted a provision in Chapter 71 of the
Massachusetts General Laws, Section 59B, stipulating that principals “shall be
responsible, consistent with district personnel policies and budgetary
restrictions and subject to the approval of the superintendent, for hiring all
teachers, athletic coaches, instructional or administrative aides, and other
personnel assigned to the school, and for terminating all such personnel…”
Section 59B rather quickly became known as the “principal’s
choice statute” in recognition of the significant additional power it had
conferred upon school leaders.
HB 2319 seeks to diminish that power, which the
Massachusetts Civil Service Commission has recognized as “broad” but not
“unfettered.” The bill would do that by
amending the state’s civil service law, Chapter 31 of the general laws, to
require that persons holding custodial, maintenance and other non-teaching
positions be hired and fired in accordance with civil service rules if any
given school department classifies those positions as civil service jobs.
The Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal
Employees (AFSCME), the union representing non-teachers in many public school
systems, has determined that a janitor in the crosshairs is going to do better
before a civil service hearing officer who has never met him than a principal
who knows him all too well.
When testifying on behalf of HB 2319 at a hearing of the
Joint Committee on Public Service on June 2, 2015, James Durkin, legislative
director for Council 93 of AFSCME, said the bill “would correct the injustice
of denying civil service rights to public school employees because they’re on a
school budget and not a municipal budget.”
Gov. Baker, on the other hand, in his Dec. 8 letter to the
legislature, made it clear that he sees the bill as a potential injury to the “managerial
authority of public school principals.”
He wrote:
“That authority is at the heart of the Education Reform Act
of 1993, which granted enhanced authority over internal school matters to the principals
in order to increase their accountability in the preparation of our children to
compete in the global economy.”
One public school superintendent I know says the power
vested in principals by Section 59B “has absolutely helped to ensure the better
performance of our public schools since the passage of the Education Reform
Act.” Here’s what this superintendent
told me in an email earlier this week:
“In regard to the custodians, cafeteria workers and clerical
help, these people are all major contributors to the schools and their ability
to function well day to day. The custodians
not only clean the buildings, they also check all the time on the safety of the
equipment used by the schoolchildren.
The cafeteria workers ensure proper nutrition and present the best foods
in ways that are appealing to the students. The clerical help are an integral part of the
hour-to-hour operation of the schools and the school buildings; they are key to
dealing effectively with parents and school personnel, as well as to maintaining
student confidentiality and proper, accurate records.
“The only sensible management approach is to have all teachers and non-teachers accountable to the principals, and solely to the
principals, within the bounds of the law.”
The 2015-16 legislative session was the second one in a row
where AFSCME fought for legislation taking away from principals the power to
hire and fire non-teachers as they saw fit.
No doubt the union will be championing The Son of HB 2319 during the soon-to-be-upon-us 2017-18
session. I’m no prognosticator. But I don’t think the kid will do any better
than dad or grandpa.
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