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March 2002
Union opposes revision for summer school
Posted Thursday, March 28, 2002
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
The Providence Teachers Union objects to a proposed revision in the summer school policy that would admit any student with a failing grade, even one who put in no effort during the school year.
The current policy enables students to make up failures as long as they complete the regular school year with averages of 50 or higher.
A provision that prohibits students from attending summer classes if they are absent more than 40 days during the regular school year would remain the same.
Phil DeCecco, president of the Providence Teachers Union, told the School Board Monday that the proposed change in policy shows a "lack of respect to teachers and their grading of students."
He said eliminating a minimum average of 50 in effect nullifies any "prevailing standard for participation."
The change would be analogous to having a student join an athletic team, become ineligible through excessive absences, and then be allowed to participate in post-season games, according to DeCecco.
Thomas Mezzanotte, the district's executive director for student support services, defended the proposed change, which was aired Monday for discussion only.
He pointed out that no matter what score a failing student had during the regular academic year, he or she must pass the summer course and have fewer than three absences.
He said the main issue is not maintaining a narrow definition of eligibility for summer school aimed at failing students, but the effort youngsters put into those extra classes and the standards they are being taught.
Meanwhile, Beatrice Wiggins, president of the Rhode Island Association of Concerned Black Educators, called The Journal Tuesday to say her predictions of successful candidates for administrative positions are not based on leaks from the central administration, as Lam asserted during an interview earlier this month.
On Monday, Wiggins criticized the appointment of Harry Potter, principal of Hope High School, as director of dropout prevention and recovery.
She recalled that she predicted Potter would get the post when it was created last fall, before any applications were submitted or candidates screened.
School district, teachers' union start talks again
Posted Thursday, March 28, 2002
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
Negotiators for the School Board and the Providence Teachers Union met for about two hours Tuesday, for the first time in a month, and have scheduled another session for Monday, according to the state mediator, Donald Driscoll.
"We caught up with perceptions people had of developments in the last few weeks," Driscoll said, "in terms of teacher meetings that have been going on."
He said the union leadership reported that it has been meeting with groups of teachers about the contract.
The meetings are an apparent attempt to sell the proposal to the rank and file, which in January rejected a contract endorsed by the union leadership by a vote estimated at 900 to 600.
The proposal, in many ways the same one teachers rejected last October, incorporates a multitude of small changes that, taken together, have alienated different groups of teachers for different reasons.
But between the first and second vote, the union won some important concessions in mediation:
The elimination of a requirement that teachers attend 10 one-hour after school meetings a year.
Language protecting past practices from being swept away in a new clause spelling out management rights.
The elimination of a two-tiered system of health insurance, in which teachers hired after the ratification of the contract would have to pay part of the premium.
It was only after those changes were made that the union's executive board recommended passage of the contract in January, but the majority wasn't listening.
The problem lay not in any single feature of proposal but in an underlying distrust of Schools Supt. Diana Lam, whom the union had attacked as the single element preventing a settlement.
In analyzing the second vote in January, Peter McWalters, the commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said the union leadership had been unsuccessful in reining in the anti-Lam feeling it had fed in the fall.
Yesterday, Driscoll kept returning to the word "perception."
While there has been no lack of effort among the negotiators, Driscoll said, "the lack is finding agreement around perceptions."
Since he was appointed mediator in late October, Driscoll has declined to discuss publicly the substance of negotiations and has asked both sides to refrain from making public comment as well.
Meanwhile, the School Board has approved a three-year contract with about 100 school administrators that gives them a 2-percent raise retroactive to July.
Representatives of the School Board and the Association of Providence Public School and Staff Administrators signed the agreement during a School Board meeting Monday night.
The occasion marked the first time in the 25-year history of the association that its contract has been settled before that of the teachers, according to Stephen Kane, executive director of the administrators' union.
Administrators' salaries are calculated with formulas based on the teachers' pay scale, which has not yet been settled.
But the 2 percent accepted by administrators is the same as the city's offer to teachers in the first year of the three-year proposal that went before the membership in January.
Kane said the administrators concluded negotiations because their members were getting restive about working without a pay increase.
He said salaries for the second and third year of the three-year contract must still be negotiated.
In January, the city's offer to the teachers would have given them a 7-percent raise the second year and 2 percent the third year. But there is no guarantee that money will remain on the table.
Kane, meanwhile, said the administrators' union and the superintendent have agreed that greater flexibility is needed in annual evaluations of administrators.
Until now, there has been one method of evaluation for all administrators regardless of whether they worked at the elementary, middle, or high school levels. Different approaches are needed for different levels, Kane said, but those differences have yet to be worked out.
School Board considers adding post in dropout prevention
Posted Monday, March 25, 2002
• The School Board has balked at approviong new or reconfigured administrative positions, particularly those that pay around $100,000.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- The School Board will be asked tonight to name Harry Potter, the principal of Hope High School, to a newly created position of director of drop-out prevention and recovery.
At the same time, Schools Supt. Diana Lam will request that the board make the principal's post at Hope a 12-month job.
If Potter is appointed, he would not assume his new duties until a new principal is hired at Hope High School, where there are some "real concerns," according to Thomas Mezzanotte, the district's executive director for student support services.
Potter, reached Friday, declined comment.
Mezzanotte said the director of drop-out prevention initially would work with a task force that has begun studying ways to keep youngsters in school, or get them back into class if they have already left.
"The dropout problem is a significant problem in this district," Mezzanotte said.
The state reports the drop-out rate at about 36 percent or 37 percent in Providence public schools.
Mezzanotte said the task force on drop-outs has met twice and has another session scheduled next week.
The slow pace of the task force has drawn public criticism from those who accuse Lam of failing to address the drop-out problem, even though she has been working on other approaches to improve the high school experience so students stay long enough to graduate.
Meanwhile, Mezzanotte said that the district is attempting to enable the task force to make progress by hiring a temporary facilitator until the director of drop-out prevention and recovery starts work.
Once the task force makes its recommendations, the director of drop-out prevention and recovery will work with each high school on ways to integrate them into the effort to redesign the high school years, Mezzanotte said.
Each high school has reconfigured the ninth grade, the year in which statistics show youngsters are most likely to leave school, with the aim of giving students a more personalized experience.
But those connected with the effort -- supported by an $8 million, five-year grant from the Carnegie Corporation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation -- say the redesign has a long way to go before high school is transformed.
Mezzanotte said the task force will make recommendations to the superintendent and the School Board short-term and long-term strategies to lower the drop-out rate.
In addition to helping to coordinate the implementation of task force recommendations, the director of drop-out prevention and recovery will take charge of ensuring the accuracy of drop-out statistics reported to the state, Mezzanotte said.
The director also will be involved on a limited basis with individual students who are in danger of dropping out because of a disciplinary problem, Mezzanotte said.
If Potter is appointed director, he will make $84,615, a few thousand dollars less than he gets as a high school principal. A new year-round principal at Hope would make $112,146, according to a proposal the School Board is expected to consider tonight.
The district wants to change all the principals' posts at large, comprehensive high schools to 12-month positions to reflect the scope of the work needed in those buildings, according to Susan F. Lusi, Lam's chief of staff.
Central High School was the first to move to a 12-month principal, with the appointment of Debra DeCarlo during the last academic year, and "that has worked out well," Lusi said.
In the two years and seven months since Lam has been in Providence, she frequently has had difficulty getting School Board approval for new or reconfigured administrative positions, particularly those paying salaries that approach or exceed the six-figure mark.
Critics have said they would rather the money be spent in ways that would have a direct benefit for children, although Lam has argued that the district historically has not had enough properly trained people outside the classroom to perform important administrative functions necessary to move school improvement forward.
Among other items on tonight's agenda are resolutions to raise the salaries of Deputy Supt. Melody A. Johnson and Kenneth Swanson, executive director of special education.
Johnson, who makes $120,00, did not receive a raise on her anniversary date in February 2001. She would receive a retroactive 7.7 percent increase for February through July 2001, and a 2 percent increase effective last July 1.
The combined raises would boost her current salary to 131,825.
Swanson would receive a 5.6 percent raise retroactive to Feb. 1, 2001, increasing his salary from $95,000 to 100,320.
Lam's review would fall under new board policy
Posted Monday, March 18, 2002
3.18.2002
• The school superintendent's annual evaluation would be conducted throughout the year and would allow members of the School Board to rate her performance according to goals under the plan for academic improvement.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- A proposal for a new School Board policy spells out in great detail procedures for future evaluations of Schools Supt. Diana Lam.
Aired for the first time at last week's board meeting, the proposal grew out of work the board has done during the past two years, according to board member Mary McClure.
The notion of a policy on evaluation came up during recent discussions regarding the renewal of Lam's contract, McClure said.
The board has drafted a three-year contract with Lam that is undergoing a legal review before it is submitted to Lam, McClure said Tuesday.
She said she volunteered to draft a policy on the evaluation of the superintendent, although a great deal of the result reflects work done by the School Board's personnel subcommittee.
Her evaluations in the past have been based on a rating system that covered a number of areas.
The proposed evaluation policy sets out a year-long process, from July through June, which allows School Board members individually and collectively to rate the superintendent's performance according to goals keyed to the district's strategic plan for academic improvement.
It also rates her on goals related to the "ongoing management of the district" and "competencies expected of a superintendent."
It calls for the superintendent and the School Board to set goals together at the beginning of the evaluation cycle in July and requires a mid-year conversation so there are "no surprises" when board members turn in their ratings in June, McClure said.
The superintendent would have an opportunity to conduct a self-evaluation about a month before the board completes its report, according to the policy. The policy would go into effect when the board adopts it.
Last week, School Board member Susan F. DeRita questioned a provision that would allow the superintendent to recommend changes in goals in the middle of the evaluation cycle.
"Isn't there a possibility that the goals may be amended to reflect what's going on in the system rather than what the board wants?" she asked.
McClure said the goals could not be changed by one side alone.
Olga Noguera, the acting School Board president, and board member Roosevelt Benton agreed that a lack of funding may make it impossible for the superintendentt to meet certain goals.
McClure recommended that the policy include clear definitions of the ratings, which range from 1 to 5.
The proposed policy asks each board member to submit ratings to the School Board's lawyer, who would compile the information for a meeting with the superintendent, held for the purpose of finalizing the evaluations.
Board members would discuss the reasons for their ratings and have a chance to revise them.
The board's lawyer would record the final ratings of each board member, the average rating for each item, and an average of all the ratings.
McClure said she has long believed the School Board needs to devote more effort to revising policies, many of which date from the 1970s.
During a public forum held by the School Board March 4, a frustrated parent, David Comerford, said he discovered the last revision to the policy on the middle school gifted program was written in 1992.
More than one parent who spoke at the public forum said parents were not made to feel welcome in the schools, a point Lam says she took back to school principals at all levels when she met with them later in the week.
Lam made her remarks at Monday's School Board meeting, responding to criticism from the audience.
She said she and the principals decided to take steps to ensure that schools are friendlier to parents.
At the meeting, Nancy Krahe, a home visitor, or truancy officer, said she had dealt that day with a 15-year-old who told her he hadn't been coming to school because he was failing all his subjects.
The youngster had been transferred from a seventh-grade special education classroom to a ninth-grade inclusion program in one year, Krahe said.
"Would you accept this for your children as acceptable planning?" Krahe asked the School Board.
Kenneth Swanson, the special education director, said yesterday that the student and his parents agreed to the transfer as part of an individual educational plan as required by special education law.
He said he will make further inquiries to determine how the young man fell into a pattern of failure.
March 2002 PROTEUN
Posted Friday, March 15, 2002
JOB SHARE OPPORTUNITY
Michelle Bush, a special education resource inclusion teacher at Fortes Elementary, would like to job-share her position next year. She is willing to negotiate the medical package and can be reached at home (785-4196) or at Fortes (278-0501).
WORK-TO-RULE
We remind all teachers that the PTU's policy of work-to-rule is still in effect, as it has been since it was proposed and voted on by the overwhelming majority of teachers at the membership meeting of October 16, 2001. Examples of its effectiveness can be found in the inability of the school department to roll out its new math program or to assemble a redesign team for a new high school (PAIS) due to a lack of response to postings advertising these positions. Teachers should continue to ignore new Providence School Department postings.
Imagine how much even more effective it would be if all teachers were to view work-to-rule as an opportunity to demonstrate the true value of their voluntary efforts by withdrawing them and thus exerting even more pressure on the superintendent and school board to be reasonable. Given the lack of progress in negotiations, it is not too early to consider that upcoming graduation exercises at all levels offer an excellent opportunity to demonstrate support for our work-to-rule policy by withdrawing your traditional, but voluntary, participation.
I am fully aware that work-to-rule can be painful and that it requires a degree of sacrifice, but I also know that a fair and reasonable contract, as with most things of enduring value, requires not just financial sacrifices but also sacrifices of the heart.
FORTY-WEEK CLUB
Congratulations to the following $25 winners of the February drawings: Debbie Lockwood (Perry Middle School), Lori Santaniello (West Broadway Elementary), Caroline LeStrange (Feinstein at Broad Elementary) and Joseph Dauray (Springfield Middle I).
With Club membership down significantly this year, additional members are especially welcome. Those wishing to support the educational and charitable activities of the Club, may still sign up with their building collectors or call the Union office at 421-4014.
NOMINATING COMMITTEE
At the March membership meeting of the Providence Teachers Union, the following members were elected to serve on the Union's Nominating Committee:
Lou Toro - Classical High School
Marcia Clayton - Greene Middle School
Anita Glass - Springfield Middle School
Pat Maymom - Kizirian Elementary School
Aaron Segal - Stuart Middle School
Bob Venezia - Birch Vocational
Rose Ann Warren - Flynn Elementary
The Nominating Committee is seeking nominations for the following officers and delegate/alternate positions:
President
Vice President at-Large
Vice President of High Schools
Vice President of Middle Schools
Vice President of Elementary Schools (3 positions)
Vice President of Special Groups
Secretary
Treasurer
All the above elective offices have an attendance requirement. Those seeking office must be available for all Executive Board and Membership meetings (first and second Wednesday of the month) and Building Delegate meetings (second Tuesday of the month).
Delegate/Alternate
American Federation of Teachers, July 14 - July 20
Delegate/Alternate
Rhode Island AFL-CIO, Fall of 2002
Delegate/Alternate
Providence Central Labor Council 6:00 p.m., second Wednesday every month
Delegate/Alternate
Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, Fall 2002
Members who are interested in serving in any of the above, should send a letter and resume to the Nominating Committee at the Union office by Friday, March 29, 2002.
ELECTIONS COMMITTEE
At the same meeting, the following members were elected to serve on the Union's Elections Committee:
Sandy Meekins - Fogarty Elementary School
Michael Jarrett - Chamber High School
Elizabeth A'Vant - Pleasant View Elementary School
Paul O'Donnell - West Broadway Elementary School
Sara Melin - Perry Middle School
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
With only one member voting in favor, the proposal to amend the Constitution of the PTU was defeated by the more than 400 teachers who attended the March membership meeting.
PTU MEDIA COMMITTEE
The Media Committee is seeking 10-12 additional members to assist in production of the English version of Educadores al Aire (Educators on the Air). This is a program which will appear on the Cox Cable Network on Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. and Sundays at 10:00 p.m. Those interested in assisting in the production of this positive presentation of issues affecting Providence teachers may contract Executive Board member Ferdinand Rodriguez-Vega at 273-8677 or on his cell phone at 749-5327.
Lam defends her job record
Posted Friday, March 8, 2002
3.8.2002 00:23
• Reacting to critics, the Providence superintendant says: "While I'm all in favor of high expectations. I don't want to be set up to fail, and I'm wondering whether that's happening here."
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- Supt. Diana Lam, accused by former School Board President Gertrude Blakey and other prominent blacks of failing the city's children, said yesterday that they are presenting innuendo as fact.
Lam said she inherited problems that have been two decades in the making and had been regarded with relative complacency until she arrived in Providence two years ago.
"People tell me that the kind of scrutiny, attitude, and expectations" placed on her have not been in evidence in the past, Lam said.
"While I'm all in favor of high expectations," she said, "I don't want to be set up to fail, and I'm wondering whether that's happening here."
At a news conference outside the school administration building on Wednesday, Blakey and leaders of the Ministers Alliance of Rhode Island and the NAACP accused Lam and Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. of politicizing hiring and of failing to curb a high drop-out rate.
They also raised questions about the spending of grant money, although no specific allegation of impropriety was offered.
Blakey said 18 black administrators or applicants for administrative positions have been squeezed out since Lam became superintendent, either retiring or taking jobs in other communities.
The school administration has compiled a list of five black administrators who have resigned and two who have retired in the last two-and-a-half years. Only one of them, Nadine Booker, now principal of the Orlo Avenue School in East Providence, has said she was shabbily treated.
Another administrator, Clifton Brian Kelly, said yesterday that he did not receive signals from the central administration that he would be tapped for promotion, but he did not characterize it as discrimination.
Kelly, now principal of the Broad Rock Middle School in South Kingstown, said he left because he had an opportunity to run his own school.
Lam said yesterday that as doors have opened for people from minority backgrounds in recent years, the competition for them has become fierce.
Because Providence hasn't been drawing a strong pool of applicants, the district established an aspiring principals program that combines on-the-job training with traditional academic work, she said.
Of the 23 aspiring principals, 10 come from minority backgrounds, including 6 who are black, according to the district's figures.
"We want a good competent person," regardless of race, Lam said.
"What is this that we are talking about nothing but jobs" rather than the education of students, Lam asked rhetorically.
"Why is it that if a white person or a Latino gets a job, it is flawed, but not if a black person gets a job?" she mused.
Lam has been accused of hiring friends and former colleagues as administrators, but she said the only person she knew before she came to Providence is Melody A. Johnson, the deputy superintendent.
In an interview yesterday, Lam also responded to a variety of other accusations made at Wednesday's news conference by Blakey and other black leaders.
Regarding financial accountability, she said, "I want to remind everyone that I was all for having a thorough financial audit" of federal programs, Lam said, 'but the School Board did not approve it."
A programmatic review of the Title I program for disadvantaged students resulted in a ruling by the federal government that millions of dollars had been misspent.
Lam said private foundations, such as the Carnegie Corporation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have designated intermediaries in the community as fiscal agents to manage their money, rather than the city.
Innuendos that some of this money might have been misspent cast aspersions on the intermediaries -- agencies such as the Rhode Island Foundation and the Children's Crusade for Higher Education, she said.
"It's news to me that they may not consider these worthy partners in their endeavors," Lam said.
In response to questions about her travel money, Lam said she asked for a tally of the amount of district money she has spent on travel in the last two years and seven months and it came to about $3,200.
Although her travel has been far more extensive, Lam said, the costs in many cases have been picked up by organizations that have invited her to conferences.
Lam was asked in the interview about a recurring criticism from detractors and supporters alike that her communication skills have been inadequate.
"I would suggest the district has never had as much communication as it has now," Lam said, citing its Web site and its weekly superintendent's report, which is circulated electronically.
She also said she is busy every night meeting with small groups of people at organizations such as Dorcas Place, an adult-literacy center.
"This is another area where we've gone from no expectations to an expectation of flawless communications," Lam said.
Blakey, meanwhile, has also questioned academic gains that the state says have been made in the elementary schools during Lam's tenure.
"If you don't do well, they attack you," Lam said, acknowledging that all the city's schools except Classical High School were categorized this year as low-performing.
"If you start doing better, they attack you," Lam said. "In that sense, you can't win."
While Lam said he has questions about the state's accountability system, she is satisfied that there is an upward trend in the elementary schools, where most of the reform effort has been concentrated so far.
Parents express concern about contract, morale
Posted Tuesday, March 5, 2002
3.5.2002 08:10
• At a special School Board session seeking input from the public, some parents say they do not feel welcome in their children's schools.
BY GINA MACRIS
PROVIDENCE -- As the father of three children in the public schools, Noel Sanchez says he feels powerless to do anything about the friction he has seen between teachers and administrators.
And he says he doesn't feel parents are welcome in the schools, a sentiment shared by others last night at a special School Board meeting devoted to public comment. About 30 people attended the session at the Nathan Bishop Middle School.
Sanchez noted that morale has been affected by the lack of a contract settlement for the city's 2,200 teachers.
Sanchez said the culture of the schools is "set against parents being involved," despite the School Board's statements to the contrary.
"You can get in if you want, but you have to push a lot," said Sanchez, who has one child at the Samuel L. Bridgham Middle School and two others at the Asa Messer Elementary School.
Later in the meeting, board member Susan DeRita urged parents to call or write the School Board if they are not made to feel welcome in their children's schools.
Meanwhile, Maureen Kenner spoke about a lack of parental involvement from her dual perspective as the mother of a student at Classical High School and as a teacher at the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School at Fox Point.
As a teacher, she said, she is "grateful for the rigorous professional development" she has received but is "extremely concerned that parents have not kept up."
"Teachers need the support of parents at home," she said.
"What are you planning to do to engage parents? What is in place to hold parents accountable?" asked Kenner, who serves on school improvement teams at Gregorian and Classical.
Another parent, Jonathan Howard said he has served on two school improvement teams, neither of which has accomplished much.
Neither team had a clear idea of its authority, he said. School principals don't know how to run school improvement teams or coordinate them with other school teams, Howard observed.
Meanwhile, Lutusha Fernandez told the board her daughter misses about 20 minutes of class time daily at the B. Jae Clanton Elementary School complex because the school bus in her neighborhood is chronically late.
The afternoon bus trip is also unduly long, Fernandez said. For example, her daughter did not arrive home yesterday until 4:45 p.m.
State Rep. Steve Smith, a truancy officer, or home visitor, for the school district, asked that the School Board consider expanding alternative programs for disruptive students in the next budget.
Family Court evaluations of disruptive students frequently call for alternative programs, but "we have very little to offer," he said.
Public invited to air views on schools
Posted Monday, March 4, 2002
3.4.2002 00:27
PROVIDENCE -- The School Board will host a public forum at the Nathan Bishop Middle School tonight at 7 to hear perspectives from the community on the state of the public schools.
The board holds special meetings once every three months during the school year to allow for comments from individuals who may not have a chance to be heard during regularly scheduled School Board meetings.
Olga Noguera, acting School Board president, urged anyone interested in the schools to attend.
"I want to ensure that parents and members of the Providence community understand and have an opportunity to help shape our policies and be heard in regard to our efforts to improve Providence schools," she said in a statement Friday.
Contract talks will resume March 26
Posted Friday, March 1, 2002
3.1.2002 00:35
• Since teachers rejected a settlement on Jan. 22, there has been "no meeting of the minds" on changes that might lead to an agreement, the state mediator says.
BY GINA MACRIS
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- There is no end in sight to the labor dispute between the Providence Teachers Union and the School Department, which has been in mediation since late October over a contract proposal that teachers have rejected twice.
Negotiators have met twice in the last three weeks, most recently for 21/2 to 3 hours on Wednesday, Donald Driscoll, the state mediator, said yesterday.
But there will be no more talks until March 26, he said.
Asked why, Driscoll initially replied that "schedules are tight."
The gap in talks, nearly four weeks, appears to be the longest since mediation started last fall. Driscoll did not dispute that assessment.
Since the teachers' second rejection of a settlement Jan. 22, Driscoll said, there has been no "meeting of the minds on any changes that might yield fruit" in winning the acceptance of the rank and file.
"That doesn't mean that alternatives are not being explored," he said.
"But in order to have a change, there has to be a back and forth"that results in an agreement, Driscoll said.
Initially yesterday, when called by a reporter, he said he was "thinking about ways to resolve this issue."
"I just know deeply in my heart that the American system was designed to work," he said. "I simply cannot accept any idiosyncratic behavior."
Later in the day, he said, "There is a tremendous need for people to refocus their attention."
In his more than 25 years as a state mediator, he has never had a mediated settlement rejected by the members of either side, Driscoll said.
"Usually you have substantial assurance that things will go smoothly," Driscoll said. "This time things did not go smoothly."
As Driscoll told the Public Education Fund in a recent letter, "I have no doubt that each of the teams fulfilled its commitment to 'sell' the agreement."
Franciso Cruz, president of the PEF, had written Driscoll Feb. 7 to ask that he recommend the use of a secret ballot when the union membership votes on the pact again.
Cruz wrote that a secret ballot "would allow teachers to vote their conscience, help union leadership better gauge the true sentiment of its membership, and give teachers the latitude to disagree without personal bitterness."
In a reply to Cruz dated Feb. 13, Driscoll said he did not believe it ethical for a mediator to "direct or interfere in the internal workings of either union or management . . . "
Yesterday, Cruz said he was disappointed by Driscoll's reply. He had merely asked that Driscoll suggest a secret ballot.
But Driscoll said yesterday that even a suggestion "carries weight" when it comes from someone in his position.
Some teachers reported that strident opponents to a settlement jeered and intimidated others who favored acceptance at the Jan. 22 membership meeting.
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