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2 School Panels Seem Born to Fight

For a rare moment, the D.C. Board of Education seemed to be getting along with schools Chief Executive Julius W. Becton Jr.

Board Vice President Wilma R. Harvey (Ward 1) had just thanked Becton for holding, at her request, a briefing a few days earlier by the D.C. Emergency Transitional Education Board of Trustees.

But then Board of Education President Don Reeves (Ward 3) began berating Becton, accusing him and the other trustees of refusing similar requests he had made.

"It is absolutely reprehensible that this organization is not being dealt with as an organization," Reeves scolded at the school board's Sept. 17 meeting. "I denounce that behavior which has been in effect from November until this very day."

Becton raised his hand to reply. Reeves ignored him.

"Mr. Chairman, may I comment?" Becton asked.

"No, sir," Reeves snapped. "This moment is finished."

The incident aptly illustrated the bitter state of relations between school board members and the emergency trustees, who have been at odds since the D.C. financial control board stripped the elected school board of most of its powers in November 1996 and appointed Becton and eight other trustees to overhaul the troubled school system.

The takeover took place as Reeves and three other newly elected school board members, who had campaigned with pledges to fix the system, were still celebrating their victories. Some of them joined board veterans in an unsuccessful lawsuit to try to retain authority, and things have degenerated ever since.

"We were set up not to like each other by the way we were appointed," said trustee Chairman Bruce K. MacLaury, president emeritus of the Brookings Institution. "They were called failures, and we were the new people who were supposed to fix their mess."

The feuding has impeded efforts to improve one of the nation's most troubled public school systems.

The elected school board was left only the authority to oversee charter schools — and was told by the control board to provide advice and guidance to the trustees, who were supposed to give the school board's advice "appropriate weight." Reeves, as school board president, was given a seat on the trustee board, with the idea that he would funnel information back and forth.

But that arrangement exists only on paper.

"It was pretty obvious that whatever little bit of lip service they gave to it, neither Becton nor the trustees were really interested in collaboration," said school board member Jay Silberman (At Large).

He and others say the contentiousness results from the way the trustees operate. They meet mostly behind closed doors, giving school board members little information even after they have filed Freedom of Information Act requests. Reeves says Becton and MacLaury have done "a disastrous job" seeking advice from the board.

Becton and other trustees, in turn, blame Reeves, who has alienated the rest of the appointed board by releasing confidential information to the public and questioning trustee motives and decisions.

Others in the District's educational orbit say Becton and Reeves each behaved in a way that exacerbated the tensions.

"The responsibility really lies on General Becton to a major degree, because he's the one who came in and closed the door," said Linda Moody, the Ward 8 school board representative. "And it is his responsibility to reopen that door and bridge that gap. But I will say that every time he tries to do that, Don Reeves slams the door in his face."

Reeves, an English professor at Prince George's County Community College whose school board presidency ends in January, said his ideas and advice get short shrift at trustee meetings. And he complains that the trustee board takes action without giving him time to solicit feedback from the school board.

However, the elected board — itself divided into factions — has not helped its cause. At monthly public meetings, which Becton attends, members have have spent little or no time discussing education recommendations they might make to the trustees.

"Even if their powers have been diminished, they could be more visible, more assertive and give their opinions on a number of issues," said D.C. Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3).

School officials say relations between the two bodies need to improve, and soon, since the trustees are supposed to return power to the elected board in July 2000.

"It is going to be very important that we have a good, strong Board of Education," said Peter A. Gallagher, a trustee who praises the school board's institutional knowledge. "They have to know what we've been doing."

Becton and the trustees say that is why they recently have tried to build better relations with a few individual school board members.

"I would like to see the boards working hand in glove," Becton said. "I would like to be able to say we're walking in lockstep, . . . they would be able to pick it up without missing a beat."

Moody said that she has been invited to a news conference and other trustee functions but that she believes school officials could do more.

The trustees "know where they think things ought to go, but they need to know what we've tried before," she said. "We can tell where the weak points are in their plans or what's already on the books."

She cites, for example, last month's relocation of Ballou High School students to a closed junior high school after Ballou — which is in her ward — was shut down for roof repairs. Two or three classes were crowded into single rooms, and students lacked books and other essentials. After a student fight spilled out of control, school officials removed Ballou's popular principal — and students walked out in protest, forcing his quick reinstatement.

"If they had just called me . . . I would have told them it was not the time" to remove the principal, Moody said.