Unlawful Behavior of the Framingham City Council: Part 2

This is the second of a series of articles which addresses behaviors of the Framingham City Council which are unlawful, unsound, or unsustainable:

1. Unlawful behavior includes repeatedly violating the City Charter and violating, or planning to violate, state laws in its approach to ordinances and the school district.
2. Unsound behavior includes systematically delegating its decision making responsibilities to the Finance Subcommittee, effectively eliminating a majority of the City Council from discussion and deliberation on key strategic and tactical issues.
3. Unsustainable behavior includes executing major financial and infrastructure policies, with no community buy in, which have eroded the city’s finances and capital assets year after year.

In the first article in this series, published on January 25,2024, the focus was on City Council violations of the City Charter:

Unlawful Behavior of the Framingham City Council: Part 1

In this second article, the focus will shift to violations of the letter and spirit of state law by the City Council.

All of these violations and prospective violations involve the City Council intruding on the domain of School Committee authority. There is a remarkable attitude evidenced by some City Councilors that they run the schools. They often show a considerable degree of impatience with school district affairs and are inclined to try to intervene when they should not.

The state has made the role of the School Committee quite clear. In particular, the City Council:

1. Cannot write policy governing the school district into any of its ordinances.
2. Cannot force consolidation of school district departments with city departments.
3. Cannot line item edit the school district budget in any way.
4. Has no authority over school district staff and cannot ‘command’ the school district Superintendent to appear before it to explain anything in the school district.

Yet the City Council has transgressed in all of these areas.

The Massachusetts General Laws (MGL) governing all of this can be accessed, and are well described at:

• Massachusetts General Laws
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Laws_of_Massachusetts

A very readable summary of school committee powers can also be found at the Massachusetts Association of School Committees:

https://www.masc.org/resources/school-budget-and-finance/role-of-the-school-committee-in-finance/

The pertinent state law is:

1. “The school committee in each city and town and each regional school district: shall have the power to select and to terminate the superintendent, shall review and approve budgets for public education in the district, and shall establish educational goals and policies for the schools in the district consistent with the requirements of law and statewide goals and standards established by the board of education.” MGL Ch 71 Sec 37
2. “The vote of the legislative body of a city or town shall establish the total appropriation for the support of the public schools but may not limit the authority of the school committee to determine expenditures within the total appropriation.” MGL Ch 71 Sec 34

Further, the City Council is specifically forbidden to intrude on school committee authority as follows:

1. “The government of the city and the general management and control of all of its affairs shall be vested in a city council, which shall be elected and shall exercise its powers in the manner hereinafter set forth; except that the general management and control of the public schools of the city and of the property pertaining thereto shall be vested in the school committee.” MGL Ch 43 Sec 66
2. “The city council shall have and exercise all the legislative powers of the city, except as such powers are reserved by this chapter to the school committee and to the qualified voters of the city.” MGL Ch 43 Sec 97

Four examples of City Council misbehavior with regard to state law and the school district will be examined, with the key City Councilor noted:

1. The Welcoming Ordinance, which violates state law by writing policy for the school district. (Stefanini)
2. The relentless drive to combine school departments with city departments: finance, human resources, technology, facility maintenance and capital improvements. (King/Cannon/Stefanini)
3. The persistent drive to reduce the school district Special Education reserve to zero. (King)
4. Interference with the school district process for managing student behavior problems. (Ottaviani/Cannon)

1. The Welcoming Ordinance

The Welcoming Ordinance was discussed in a prior newsletter at:

Framingham City Council Tried To Usurp School Committee Policy Authority

Little can be added to that except that this gross violation of state law stills stands, and it will remain an embarrassment to Framingham government until the day comes when the new City Council recognizes that Section 9.3.3 of that ordinance violates state law by attempting to write policy for the school district.

The offending Section 9.3.3 is included at the end of this article, so readers can easily see how the City Council is trying to dictate policy to the school district.

The simple, lawful approach to rectifying this situation is for the City Council to vote to remove Section 9.3.3 from the Welcoming Ordinance, and then forward that section to the School Committee with a request that the School Committee refer it to its Policy Subcommittee for possible integration into its set of policies, with any adjustments the School Committee sees fit to make.

In all prior actions relating to the Welcoming Ordinance, the School Committee as a body was never consulted nor included in the process. That cardinal error of process would also be rectified in this revisiting of the Welcoming Ordinance.

That would preserve the ‘separation of powers’ of the City Council and the School Committee and conform to the original intent of the Welcoming Ordinance Commission, without violating state law.

2. Consolidation of School Departments and City Departments

This issue was also discussed in a prior article:

Framingham City Council Aims to Reorganize the School System Administration

Again, state law prohibits the City Council from forcing consolidation ‘efficiencies’ on the school district by making it merge departments with the city: finance, human resources, technology, facility maintenance and capital improvements.

The City Council cannot meddle in school district affairs.

The latest resurfacing of this unlawful scheme, which is also an organizational nightmare, occurred in a City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting on January 11, 2024, where George King and Mike Cannon tried to hold hostage a key position the Mayor needed to fill because they were unhappy about the Mayor’s lack of progress in forcing their pet consolidation scheme on the school district.

Here is a video of the Mayor fighting back against the King/Cannon threat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYeWLBECfL0

While merging finance, human resources, technology, and facility management city/school departments makes no sense, there is some synergy possible in the capital projects area, as both the school district and the city have multiple projects in the pipeline. Nothing prevents collaboration, but the degree to which that happens, or is formalized in new management structures, has to be done in a productive manner in consultation with the School Committee, and with its approval, not as some scheme forced on the school district by King and Cannon.

3. The School District Special Education Reserve

This issue was also discussed in a prior article:

Framingham City Council Guts Key Protection For Special Needs Students

This is a prime example of the City Council Finance Subcommittee targeting a line item in the school district budget for a large cut, by pressuring the Mayor and the School Committee. The action occurred in a City Council Finance Subcommittee meeting on March 24, 2023, and reduced the Framingham Public Schools Special Education Reserve to zero.

That is the reserve which protects the school district against unexpected move ins of students with high needs, which can require as much as $200,000/year for a student.

To his credit, City Councilor Noval Alexander was very unhappy about that cut and argued against it. After all, he is a special needs classroom aide and knows the critical role this reserve plays. But he lost the argument and the George King achieved one of his long term goals: to cut this reserve to zero, in a clear violation of the spirit of the state law which protects the school district budget from City Council line item editing.

4. City Council Interference With Management of Students in the School District

This issue was also touched on in a prior article:

Framingham Student Behavior Problems Caused By Defunding the Schools

Here the school district Superintendent, Bob Tremblay, was called on the carpet by the City Council Chair, Phil Ottaviani, to ‘explain’ a recent student behavior incident, at a City Council meeting on February 6, 2024.

Phil got ahead of the process here, as a School Committee meeting was scheduled to deal with that exact same topic the next day, February 7, 2024.

The Superintendent reports to the School Committee, not the City Council, so School Committee members were especially irritated at this City Council overreach. One can argue that the Superintendent was ‘invited’, not ‘commanded’, but Bob had little choice once Phil Ottaviani ‘invited’ him to explain the trouble at the high school. In the City Council meeting Councilor Mike Cannon suggested that the Superintendent might report on a regular basis to the City Council, which underlines the extent to which the City Council is inclined to violate state law prohibitions against it ordering school district staff around.

It was a setup in which both City Councilors Phil Ottaviani and Mike Cannon attacked the Superintendent, and little was achieved, although the acting high school principal, did counter Ottaviani/Cannon misinformation with a clear presentation of the facts, as reported in:

Mark Albright, Acting Principal at Framingham High School, Explains What is Being Done To Improve Safety

There was also some very compelling public comment by middle school and elementary school teachers, but it was directed to the City Council, which has no power to effect change in the school district, rather than the School Committee, which does. In a School Committee meeting the next day, none of those teachers showed up to give input where it would have had a direct impact.

That City Council meeting was a grand example of the City Council intruding on School Committee territory and attempting to usurp its authority to manage the school district.

There is no doubt that there are very real problems with the behavior of some students, and they do need to be dealt with, but changes are already in progress in the school district.

The most important thing the City Council can do is stop trying to insert itself in the day-to-day management of the school district and return the $10 million/year in local city funding of the school district, which it removed in the last two school district annual budgets, to make sure that school buses run on time, that the huge shortage of classroom aides is addressed, and that all 4-year-olds in the city benefit from pre-K education.

The City Council needs to vastly improve its performance in this new term.

Its balance of power has significantly changed, with the defeat of John Stefanini and two new, energetic City Councilors on board, so there is an opportunity to turn around its violation or defiance of state law for the betterment of Framingham.

It should start with fixing the Welcoming Ordinance, then redress its past financial mistakes in the next budget cycle, especially to guarantee a sound future for the school district.

Notes:

Welcoming Ordinance, Section 9.3.3 Framingham Public Schools (FPS)

a) No employee of the Framingham Public Schools (FPS) shall require a student, parent, legal guardian or caretaker to provide information regarding their immigration or citizenship status to establish the student’s residency in the district for enrollment purposes. If such information becomes known to an employee of the Framingham Public Schools, such information shall not be kept or distributed and shall have no bearing on the student’s ability to register for school or the school’s treatment of that student. Information collected regarding the place of birth for the purpose of providing students with appropriate services shall be used only by FPS employees for that purpose and not distributed further.

b) The FPS website shall be provided in a digital format that can be translated into the reader’s preferred language.

c) FPS will approach Special Education with an equity lens and understanding of the complexities of neurodivergence in emerging bilingual students.

d) FPS will incorporate an introduction to civic participation as an immigrant to its civics curricula across the grade levels.

e) FPS will utilize culturally appropriate means of communication to engage immigrant communities including non-English radio stations, immigrant-published newspapers, and social media platforms. FPS will collaborate with community leaders in immigrant communities including religious leaders. FPS will maintain and seek to establish partnerships with immigrant-serving organizations including the Brazilian-American Center (BRACE), SuperParents online support group, Pelham Lifelong Learning Center, and others.

f) FPS will maintain a commitment to hiring staff including district leadership who reflect the immigrant communities and will make a specific effort to recruit and retain FPS graduates who are immigrants. In order to promote employee understanding of Framingham’s immigrant communities, the district will continue to partner with consulates, embassies, and professional exchange programs and to provide professional development for teachers. Administrator professional development will promote cultural competency and/or humility among school staff including building leadership, counselors, and social workers.