Doe Mayoral Control Contingency Plan

If the Mayoral control law sunsets on June 30, 2009, there are governance issues at the local level that have the potential to cause serious operational problems in the schools during the summer and fall. These issues require further legal analysis, but are summarized below. If a new Mayoral control law is not adopted, on June 30 the Community Education Councils will cease to exist, as the statutes creating them expire. Pursuant to the law, the old community school boards spring back to life. The first governance problem, however, is that by the law’s own terms, community school board members cannot be elected until May 2010 (this date is set forth in the Education Law, and there is no provision for holding elections at a different time). Furthermore, there appears to be no authority for anyone to appoint temporary community school board members. The Chancellor will have the power to appoint trustees where he removes community school board members for violating the law, but this will not be a situation where a member violated the law. Therefore, the community school boards will exist, but they will have no members—and will thus be incapable of taking any action. Under the reverted law, each community school board will have the power to employ the community superintendent by contract. Community superintendents will be appointed by the Chancellor from a list of candidate recommended by the community school board. These provisions of the law raise two problems. First, if the community superintendents must, under the law after June 30, be employed via a contract with the community school board, it is entirely unclear that current community superintendents retain their position after June 30, since none of them has a contract with a community school board. Second, there is no way of appointing new community superintendents after June 30, because without community school board members, there can be no recommendations made to the Chancellor. Therefore, there is a real possibility that there will be no community superintendents after June 30. The absence of both community school boards and community superintendents could have serious repercussions for summer school and for school opening in the fall. The community superintendents, by law, will have the power to hire and fire school staff and to approve or disapprove all instructional matters in the schools. Without a community superintendent, schools may be unable to fill teaching and other vacancies or to fire employees who commit crimes and other misconduct. While principals have the authority to make curricular decisions, those decisions will require the superintendent’s approval, and without a superintendent, it is not clear how schools can make needed instructional decisions at all. Additionally, the absence of a superintendent would have a direct impact on children who attend summer school in order to meet the DOE’s promotion criteria. At the end of the summer, if a student does not achieve a level two on both the ELA and math tests, the student can still be promoted based upon a review of the student’s portfolio of work. But this review must be done by the superintendent. Without a superintendent, children in this situation will be unable to achieve promotion. These are complicated issues and require further consideration and analysis. But at a minimum there could be a lack of clear lines of authority and accountability at the

local level, one can imagine complex litigation over such matters as hiring, curricular matters, and student promotions. We will need to address these concerns going forward if the legislature fails to take action before June 30.