Far-left New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in his last few weeks in office, is attempting to silence parents critical of public education policies, according to two parent leaders writing in the New York Post.
Proposed Chancellor’s Regulation D-210 would give the Department of Education (DOE) the authority to “discipline and remove” elected parents from Community Education Councils (CEC) — the city’s version of a school board — if they criticize the school district they are charged with holding accountable.
According to former District 2 CEC president Maud Maron and current District 2 CEC vice president Danyela Souza Egorov, the “whole point of an elected parent council” is to be able to freely oppose DOE policies. The proposal is set to be voted on December 21, a date the parent leaders state was chosen because it is “not a historically high parent-participation date.”
One section of the newly-minted “Code of Conduct” bars council members from engaging in “frequent verbal abuse and unnecessary aggressive speech.” It also gives the chancellor the authority to remove a member if the chancellor determines their conduct is “contrary to the best interest of the New York City school district.”
Maron and Egorov say the new proposal also “establishes yet another administrative position to monitor parents: the equity-compliance officer.” This officer would be “charged with deciding who to target for removal.”
Noting the timing, the two parent leaders say the regulation comes immediately after an election in which, for the first time, parents were able to directly vote for CEC members.
“Over the last three years, we parents have vocally opposed the DOE’s misguided school-closure and masking policies…” Maron and Egorov wrote. “Calling parents ‘domestic terrorists’ did not work to silence parents at school-board meetings, and trying to do an end-run around democratically elected parent leaders should not be allowed either.”