This week, the Mat-Su Education Association released the results of a vote of no confidence in the Mat-Su Borough School Board and Mat-Su Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani.
MSEA is the union that represents teachers and other school employees who require professional certification. According to a statement released Wednesday, over a thousand of those school employees voted, representing eighty percent of the total employed by the district.
MSEA President Vicki Hewitt says the vote was very one-sided.
“And 93.1% of those voters said they had no confidence in the school board, and 91.3% said they had no confidence in the superintendent.”
Hewitt says the vote was not the result of direction from union leadership, but rather the results of multiple concerns from educators and the public.
“For about a year, people having been coming to me—not just educators, but also people in the community—asking how they can do a vote of no confidence. So this was not directed by the leadership of the union….”
The MSEA press release outlines some of those concerns, including limiting the function of school counselors libraries, increased credit requirements for graduation, and mandatory Advanced Placement classes. The statement also criticizes the school board’s handling of public process and transparency. MSEA says policy changes are largely decided by a committee that does not hold public meetings, and those changes are not adequately explained at school board meetings.
The most recent controversial decision by the school board was the removal of the student representative as an active participant at board meetings. Before the policy was voted on by the board, the seat for the student representative had already been removed.
Hewitt says MSEA hopes the vote will draw attention to the school board’s activities.
“We hope that this vote will bring attention to the school board and the administration that we’re really concerned about the negative effect that some of their decisions are having. And we would like to partner with them to fix those things. Some things may be able to be tweaked, but some things need to be changed.”
MSEA’s statement says school district administration has reached out to communicate, but the only member of the Mat-Su School Board who has spoken with Hewitt is Ted Swanson, who represents District 7.
The next school board meeting is on November 1st.
