Report Back School Board / Military Recruitment 4/28

Report Back from City School Board Meeting 4/28/09 – Another Long and Frustrating Evening

Several people spoke eloquently during the public comment period at this evening’s school board meeting against changes in board policy that would increase military recruiters’ access to student information. Speakers included students, a city school teacher, parents, peace activists and veterans. Rochester City Students for a Democratic Society was in the house, some members speaking and some with colorful signs saying “protect student privacy” and “no military in our schools.”

Interestingly, there were no uniformed (or any at all?) military present, nor did anyone from the public speak in favor of recruiting in schools. At prior meetings recruiters have been present in numbers whenever the issue has been on an agenda. Military officials were allowed to give a lengthy PowerPoint presentation at the school board Policy Committee meeting last week. Their absence this evening may be a consequence of Viet Nam veteran/peace activist David Dornford’s complaint to military and elected officials that uniformed military personnel are not permitted to engage in political persuasion.

The bottom line from tonight’s meeting is that nothing happened on the issue. Board member Cynthia Elliott (the main proponent of changing policy in favor of recruiters’ access) decided to defer discussion of the issue to next month’s meeting despite having put the item on this evening’s agenda. Commissioner Brennan recognized it was “unfortunate” that many of us sat for three hours only to have the formal “new business” agenda item simply deferred.

Willa Powell stated that she has drafted a new six page “white paper” on the issue that she will circulate to the board. The public was not given any information on what she has written and this “trust Willa’s strategy” is getting a little old in my opinion. I think we should fight for no change to the existing policy, and rally around Van White’s straightforward and courageous call to let the Department of Defense challenge us. If necessary we will let the courts consider the constitutionality of No Child Left Behind provisions and the unfair linkage to Title I funding.

Many of us would like to see this issue disappear from the board’s agenda since Rochester has a relatively progressive local policy regarding the release of our children’s private information to the military. It appears likely, though, that things will heat up next month.

School Board President Malik Evans contradicted him self repeatedly this evening. First, he belligerently claimed that Crescendo Scipione, a powerful student speaker in the public comment period, was fabricating out of nowhere the idea that the school board would hold a special meeting devoted to the recruiting issue before deciding on any policy change. In fact, this was clearly the plan articulated at the February board meeting. In contrast to that publicly announced plan, those of us concerned that a harmful change could be quietly voted through have only been informed of developments through non-democratic insider communications between a board member and select individuals within the peace community.

Second, President Evans stated that he thinks the issue has already been discussed too much, and then in the same breath he complained that public speakers who showed up tonight were all on one side, i.e. against increased military access to students’ information. After having said he didn’t want to keep meeting on the issue, he contradicted himself and said he wanted to have a meeting so military recruiters and JROTC students can be heard. This makes me believe that he will be actively lining up speakers for the next meeting in favor of increasing recruiters’ access to students.