Warring NYC school board members booted from posts: ‘Unfit to serve in these roles’
Two warring parent leaders were kicked off their respective school boards Friday in the first such action under a city complaint process created in 2021.
Schools Chancellor David Banks ousted Tahj Sutton, the president of Brooklyn’s Community Education Council 14, and Maud Maron of Manhattan’s Community Education Council 2, both of whom had various complaints lodged against them.
“It is a sad day when New York City Public Schools is compelled to take the actions I have ordered today but the violations committed by these two individuals have made them unfit to serve in these roles,” Banks said in a statement, without naming the two women.
CEC District 14 President Tajh Sutton was fired two months after she was accused of violating the law by supporting a student protest walkout. tajhsutton.com/bio
Maron found out about her ouster minutes before the memo was sent out, she told The Post.
Banks implied that the pair had failed to follow laws surrounding their community education council meetings, particularly the Open Meeting Law.
Sutton and Maron are the first school board members to be removed under the city’s D-210 complaint process.
Maron had previously criticized the D-210 process, claiming that parents who “dare to challenge the reigning orthodoxy are being investigated, harassed and chased out of elected positions.”
Both Sutton and Maron were slapped with D-210 complaints for separate incidents in April.
CEC 2’s Maud Maron was reprimanded in April for making “derogatory or offensive comments” about a public school student. William C Lopez/New York Post
Sutton was reprimanded by Banks for promoting a citywide student walkout in protest of the Israel-Hamas war, which he said violated multiple state laws — one of which put her in jeopardy of being permanently banned from serving on any citywide board.
That same week, Maron was slapped with a complaint for making “derogatory or offensive comments” about a public school student in an interview with The Post.
Maron said the byline of a student who wrote an editorial that was widely criticized as antisemitic in Stuyvesant High School’s newspaper “should read ‘coward’ instead of ‘anonymous.’”
The removals mark the first since Chancellor David Banks launched the D-210 process. ZUMAPRESS.com
Sutton and Maron are also embroiled in a legal dispute with one another.
Maron and several other parents claim that Sutton’s CEC14 violated free speech laws by blocking conservative parents from public events.
The suit accuses Sutton and first vice-president Marissa Manzanares of “not tolerating the presence of people who disagree with them,” according to the court filings.