The Jefferson County R-1 school district is the state’s largest, although hardly its best-performing. For years, its school board has been solidly in the pocket of the teachers union. As is generally the case in the politics of public education, teachers unions recruit and help elect like-minded fellow travelers to school boards.
The odd woman out on the five-member Jeffco board is Republican Laura Boggs, the lone conservative, who won election in 2009. Boggs is committed to reforming Jeffco’s liberal status quo. Outnumbered and outgunned on the board, you can appreciate her frustration, which sometimes takes the form of outspoken, headstrong behavior.
The board’s liberal majority likes neither her philosophy nor her style. Leading the purge of Boggs is Paula Noonan, who comes off like an overbearing educrat in at least one meeting (view video here). She’s joined by the board’s inarticulate president, former Jeffco District Attorney Dave Thomas; Robin Johnson, one of those well-intentioned but politically naïve soccer moms afflicted with Chronic Adult Teacher’s Pet Syndrome; and the more moderate Jane Barnes, who, nonetheless, voted with the others last month to formally censure Boggs.
This unprecedented censure is merely symbolic, carrying no tangible consequence. The board has no authority to fire another elected member. Some of their complaints against Boggs are petty, like the charge that she once “disrupted” a classroom lesson by tying together the words “stupid” and “school” on a white board. Perhaps she was simply making a literary allusion to Mark Twain’s famous 19th century quote, “In the first place, God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”
Boggs was also accused of violating a board governance policy that calls for all members to speak with one voice in public. This kind of protocol is a procedural departure from the traditional Robert’s Rules of Order. It’s sometimes called a “consensus model,” under which dissenting members of a board or committee are obligated to stifle their disagreements after a majority vote, giving the public impression of unanimity among the members. But this is a false impression when no such unanimity exists. It’s also very convenient for the liberal majority to muzzle the board’s sole conservative voice.
In addition to the board’s censure of Boggs, her chief attacker, Noonan, also attempted to bar her from serving on any committees, asserting that “she no longer appropriately represents the board.” This is a preposterous argument and an imperious penalty. Boggs isn’t obligated to represent the liberal majority — the teachers union’s contingent — on the board. Her first duty is to represent and speak for the Jeffco voters who elected her.
This so-called consensus “governance policy” has no legal status and no practical means of enforcement. If Boggs ever agreed to go along with it as a new board member before she understood its ramifications, she’s perfectly justified in repudiating it now. It’s like forcing minority Republicans in the last session of Congress to publicly agree with Nancy Pelosi and majority Democrats in the House; or prohibiting Supreme Court justices from writing dissenting opinions on a court ruling; or preventing members of the National Labor Relations Board from publicly voicing their disagreements.
If the Jeffco school board chooses to delegate its president as its one and only official spokesman, that’s its prerogative. But it doesn’t mean Boggs or other board members can’t make public statements, as long as they make it clear they’re speaking for themselves, not the entire board.
I commend Boggs for standing her ground. The board’s majority liberals can do as they please with their toothless censure. But they have neither the right nor the power to silence honest debate from other duly elected members. Whatever happened to the commitment of liberal educrats to diversity? It will ultimately be up to Jeffco voters to approve or disapprove of Laura Boggs’s viewpoints and behavior.
Mike Rosen’s radio show airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on 850-KOA.
