NYC could oust school board members linked to transgender, pro-Palestinian backlash

New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks on April 5, 2024, in New York City.

New York City could soon remove local school board members who faced public backlash for their involvement in divisive education battles, from transgender student athletes to schools’ response to the war in Gaza.

Education officials on Wednesday started the disciplinary process for three members of Community Education Councils after formal complaints were filed against them, according to findings obtained by the New York Daily News.

Those include Maud Maron, the lead sponsor last month of an anti-trans sports resolution, and Tajh Sutton, who helped organize a pro-Palestinian student walkout in November.

The decisions mark the first time the city has moved to suspend or remove CEC members, and comes as parent tensions appear to be at a recent high, a state of affairs that Schools Chancellor David Banks recently described as “disappointing.”

“It is the thing that in this role as chancellor which I find the most disappointing — adults behaving badly,” Banks said at a March press briefing. “I don’t know that anybody signed up for some of the nonsense that we see that emerges from adults, and I just find it very frustrating.”

There are 32 CECs across the five boroughs, plus other citywide councils with focuses such as special education or English learners. Parents are picked in often low-turnout elections for the policy advisory bodies, which review district programs and hold public hearings.

Spokesman Nathaniel Styer cautioned the determinations are not a done deal, and parents can contest the findings in coming days.

“The next steps outlined in these determinations follow our due process procedures, and offers for conciliation are an intentional part of providing an opportunity for the respondents to be heard before final action is taken,” he said in a statement.

The complaint process, known as “D-210” after the Chancellor’s regulation code that created it, was first approved at the end of 2021, during the omicron wave of the pandemic and as the Adams administration was set to take office. It would take more than two years until the city recently staffed up for the reviews.

Maron — a member of CEC2, from much of lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side, and the right-wing parental rights group Moms for Liberty — came under fire last year when her private texts leaked that said: “there is no such thing as trans kids.” Last month, she sponsored a resolution that called for a review committee on the gender policy in public school sports.

While the probe by the school system was ongoing, students at Stuyvesant High School, where Maron has a leadership position, launched an attempt in February to oust her from the role. A petition with close to 800 signatures for her removal accused Maron of spreading “hateful rhetoric” about students, a day after she called one a “coward” in the New York Post for a student newspaper article on Israel.

Maron said education officials have not provided her with the specifics of what they are adjudicating that would provide “the barest minimum of due process.”

“I can’t possibly comply with a directive to cease doing something when that ‘something’ has never been communicated to me,” said Maron.

“I have never named any student or directly addressed any student in a manner other than polite, friendly and professional,” she continued. “This bizarre, speech-chilling and punishing Kafkaesque procedure is an embarrassment.”

She and two other parents filed a federal lawsuit last month alleging the D-210 process violates their free speech rights.

Tajh Sutton, president of CEC14 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was found to have disseminated materials “containing harassing and discriminatory content” in connection with the Nov. 9 walkout for a ceasefire in Gaza. The tool kit suggested chants such as “resistance is justified when people are occupied,” “say it loud say it clear we don’t want Zionists here,” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

The determination did not specify what materials or slogans violated the school system’s rules. Outside the complaint process, Sutton was also ordered to resume the District 14 board’s meetings, after skipping the last two months and holding several earlier meetings remotely.

Sutton did not answers questions about the findings, saying she had not been alerted to some of the allegations. But she accused education officials of harassing her for the last half year.

“It’s pretty repulsive, actually,” she said.

She previously said that her board shifted to remote meetings fearing threats to their safety, after passing a resolution for a cease-fire. Parents on the council have reported receiving death threats and even a box of feces at their office in an elementary school.

More disciplinary action against parents could be in the pipeline. A total of 36 complaints have been filed against CEC members this school year, the education news source Chalkbeat reported last month. Some are not tied to divisive educational issues and have received little to no media attention.

“Every member of our school communities deserves respect and equitable opportunities to share their thoughts in the open forum provided by community education councils and other parent governance structures,” said Styer, the public schools spokesman.

“When we receive D-210 complaints against parent leaders we take those complaints seriously. There is a clear process for investigating these complaints, which was designed with and to include parent input, to ensure an inclusive and respectful environment for all. We are upholding the integrity of that process and maintain that authentic family and community engagement is a central pillar in all that we do.”

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