What Shook The Room At Beacon's Board Of Education (BOE) Meeting: 2 Open Seats, But 1 Was Filled

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Top screenshot taken from the 9/29/2020 Board meeting where the Board decided who they were going to appoint, and if they were going to appoint 1 or 2 candidates to fill 2 seats. Bottom screenshot taken from the 9/14/2020 Board of Education Meeting,…

Top screenshot taken from the 9/29/2020 Board meeting where the Board decided who they were going to appoint, and if they were going to appoint 1 or 2 candidates to fill 2 seats. Bottom screenshot taken from the 9/14/2020 Board of Education Meeting, where the 4 candidates were presenting themselves, what they stand for, and what they could bring to the Board. From left: Jasmine Johnson, John Galloway Jr., Barb Fisher, Travis Fisher.

[Editor’s Note: A companion piece to this article has been published here, that contains followups with Board members and some members of the audience. This article became so long, that it literally would not accept any more content. So, responses are posted in this companion article.]

Seats were filled socially distanced style in the auditorium of Beacon’s Pete and Toshi Seeger Theater at the Beacon High School. Prior to the pandemic, meetings were usually held in the lecture room of the Beacon High School. For the replacement of people who sit at the Board member table, however, people will come out. And come out they did on Tuesday, September 29, 2020, for a night of appointing 1 or 2 Board seats, after the first was vacated with a resignation on July 1, 2020, and a second resignation on September 22, 2020. People came out in person with masks on, and logged in from home via Zoom to bear witness and participate in how the vacated board seats would or would not get filled that night.

A large screen hung behind the board table, displaying names and faces of people on the Zoom call, as well as the chat column as people wrote in to comment or ask questions. The board members and audience attendees wore masks to stop the spread of COVID, but made it hard for anyone to hear each other. The Tech Department was on call, running up and down the isles to patch in the sound so that the people on Zoom could hear speakers at the Public Comment podium, as well as the individual microphones of the board members.

The Vacancies

The first vacancy that was created in July 2020 by the resignation of Michael Rutkoske attracted 4 candidates: John Galloway Jr., Jasmine Johnson, Barbara Fisher and Travis Fisher. John Galloway Jr. publicly announced his candidacy for the vacant seat a few days later in July at an open mic session at Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park after after a protest March down Main Street in the name of Black lives mattering more. John had attended and spoken at several Marches and open mic sessions, contributing pieces of his story of going through the Beacon school system. In his candidacy speech to the board, his main priority as a young adult with no children was to bridge the gap between the Board and the community, namely the Black community who feels not heard when they try to participate in school meetings. Jasmine is a mother who has a child in New Covenant School in Beacon, went through the Beacon school system, having experienced “nudging” from her teacher into a lower level math class that she did not recognize at the time, but made deep impact on her.

All of the candidates spoke before the Board and the public to announce their candidacies in early September, and were profiled in the Highlands Current in late September. You can listen to the speeches of all of the candidates here at YouTube.

About Those Who Resigned

Former Board member Michael Rutkoske is the husband of the attorney Melissa Rutkoske who filed a petition in January 2016, on behalf of “Concerned Parents Of Beacon City School District,” many of whom were or are affiliated with a group called Advocates For Beacon Schools (ABS) against former Superintendent Dr. Barbara Walkley and former Teacher Union President Kim Pila, where Melissa used personal email conversations allegedly acquired by Kim’s ex-husband (also a teacher in the district), which accused Barbara and Kim of having an affair and granting privileges to favorites.

The petition was later Dismissed in May 2018 by the New York State Education Department, but it contributed to a big shift in Beacon, in that Dr. Walkley resigned and involved parents were a part of a process to find current Superintendent Matthew Landahl.

Michael Rutkoske resigned in July 2020 citing work and other commitments, according to the Highlands Current.

The second vacancy was created September 22, 2020, a week prior to this meeting, by James Case-Leal, who used his resignation letter to make a dedication to John Galloway Jr. and Jasmine Johnson as the people he hoped would fill his seat, in the name of getting Black voices, thought and experiences onto the Board. This dedication angered several board members including Meredith Heuer, who spoke about it during appointment process deliberations.

Every Board Member Mentioned The Need For Diversity

Every Board member mentioned the need for including more Black people from the community on the Board, and spoke of any training they had been doing. Kristan Flynn recalled the work done in her early years of being involved: “In the beginning, there were attempts to reach out to more diverse members of the community. We met with a pastor, and some parents. What I realized was effectively how boxed out the Community of Color had become. There was no reason they should trust anyone that looked like me. A lot of the work that I have done for several years has been dedicated to building up, along with all of these other people, so that it functions, so that when the time comes, when people want to come, that it will be there.”

Later in the evening, Kristan voted against appointing 2 people during that meeting (2 candidates were Black, and 2 were white, yet all Public Comments were in support of appointing the 2 Black candidates), opting instead to delay the process one month, for a new application process. Meanwhile, the 2 people of Color who had applied in advance were in attendance listening to her speech.

Kristan went on to lament the fact that not enough people had gotten involved at the Board level prior to this evening. She said: “To that point, I have run twice for that. With no opposition. Not because I am the most popular. No one has run against us. Some people say you guys get to do that. Or others don't know that this is something they can participate in. My fear is, looking at this audience tonight, is that I will do something to break your faith in that system. I don't want to do that. I am seeing an audience that represents this community and that is exciting. I believe that what has gotten us this far is following process. I hope that you stay till the end of the meeting. Trust is lost in buckets, and gained back in drops. My fear is that that bucket empties. I don't want it to. I don't want no one to run against in the future.”

Elissa Betterbid, now Vice President of the Board, had this to say: “I know that I'm not supposed to speak for the whole Board. But this board is committed to diversity and ....Faculty and Staff. I have a friend who is a Principal in Jersey City which is a large district of 39 schools, and how their district looks with representation is a problem there as well. People of color are underrepresented there also.”

Yvonne McNair - Mama McNair

Prior to these speeches by the Board members, members of the public were there to voice support for Jasmine and John. One community member, Eddie McNair, son of Yvonne McNair, spoke.

Before we get to Eddie’s quote, you’ll need to know a bit about Yvonne if you don’t already (many of you do). She a very well known pillar of the Beacon community, who is referred to as Mamma McNair, and according to Ali T. Muhammad (former Beacon City Council Member and candidate for the Board of Education in 2016 who lost), “Yvonne is the Shirley Chisholm for Beacon.” Shriley represented New York's 12th Congressional district for 7 terms from 1969 to 1983. In the 1972 United States presidential election, Shriley became the first African-American candidate for a major party's nomination for President of the United States, and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

When speaking to the Board, Yvonne’s son Eddie had this to say about his mother’s 2014 candidacy for Beacon’s Board of Education (she first ran and lost in the 1980s): “Some of you don’t know all of your community, and that’s not your fault. But think how much you could learn and benefit by hearing about issues you never even know existed.” The Highlands Current quoted that Eddie referred to “blackballing” that had been done to his mother, Yvonne, when she ran. The paper quotes him as saying: “I would hope that today, in the climate we’re in, that those thoughts have changed. Let’s not make that same mistake. When it happened in the past, I was young and didn’t understand the seriousness and severity of the position. As I’ve grown older, I can’t accept that anymore.”

Prior to Kristan’s seat on the Board, there had been attempts by Black people to get voted in. A Black board member who was a long time Board member, Kenya Gadsen, was in the audience for this meeting. “I was there with my husband to stay abreast of what is going on,” she confirmed to A Little Beacon Blog.

Kenya did not run for re-election because her child was a senior and her work-life balance shifted when her husband took a job that would keep him on the road, leaving her listening to the feeling to be at home more for their children while she maintained her full time job. Perhaps since Kristan’s time, Black people gave up. Until this round of vacancies during the Black Lives Matter movement.

This Board Room Has Shook Before: “Advocates For Beacon Schools” (ABS)

This was not the first time that people came out for a Board member replacement. The most recent instance was in 2016 during a turnover of Beacon’s BOE and then Superintendent Barbara Walkley by the same people sitting at the Board table this Tuesday evening in 2020. In 2016, the current Board (including the two Board members who just resigned) were shaking the room, passing around petitions, moving in their chairs, “swarming” to the front of the room “to get closer to the action,” as recalled by renowned and retired local journalist Craig Wolf, who also sits currently on the Board.

The Advocates were there in 2016 to disrupt the process of how Beacon’s Board of Education worked back then, including now Board President Meredith Heuer. During this 2020 meeting, she referenced a 2016 BOE meeting that shaped her thinking and approach to this evening’s decision on whether or not to appoint 2 board members at once. In 2016, there was a sudden resignation of a board member that happened that day, and was announced at the Board meeting that night. An attempted midnight appointment of a former board member (Tracey Antalek Everett) who had just lost her reelection was proposed by then President Bill Zopf followed, and was voted down. The main challenger of the hours-old appointment was Anthony White, a current Board member who voted against this year’s racially supportive BOE statement, and just stepped down from his position as President. The attempted midnight appointment in 2016 was not meant to be.

This evening in 2020, however, there wasn’t a fast-one. There was a clear resignation, with a handful of candidates, a lot of supporters, another resignation a week prior to the appointment meeting, that included a dedication in a resignation letter that brought ire to those seated at the Board table.

This Time The Room Shook: The Black Community Came Out

This year, the room was filled with Beaconites from the Black and Brown community who showed up to support 2 candidates - John and Jasmine - who had applied to fill the first vacancy that happened in July. A very different scenario from the literal midnight appointment attempt. The Black community filled the room with hope and speeches prepared.

Meredith Heuer, the Board President, opened the discussion of what was going to happen that night with a statement: “I’ll just start by saying this sucks.” The Board had the opportunity to decide if they were going to appoint 1 or 2 board members that evening of the 4 who applied in advance. Or lengthen the process and open it to others.

Callers and physical attendees spoke during Public Comment in favor of John and Jasmine, including: Justice McCray and Ciarda Hall from Beacon4Black Lives, Reimagine Education, Sheila Webb-Halpern, Dennis S. Hallock Sr. (former Board member), Kara Dean Azale: Parent and Co-Founder of Fareground, Tiffany Mendoza (student of Beacon district), and others.

The Black community is taught by their mentors, including Martin Luther King, to recognize when a process isn’t working, and to pick the right time to ignore it. Martin Luther King explained such a time in his book Why We Can’t Wait, which chronicled the sit-in protests in Birmingham, AL that were part of fueling the Civil Rights Movement. When a court injunction was suddenly obtained to stop their protests, he said on page 76: “A second reason Bull Connor had held off at first was that he thought he had found another way out. This became evident on April 10, when the city government obtained a court injunction directing us to cease our activities until our right to demonstrate had been argued in court. The time had now come for us to counter their legal maneuver with a strategy of our own. Two days later, we did an audacious thing, something we had never done in any other crusade. We disobeyed a court order.”

“Good Trouble” vs “Process”

One question about revolutionary times is if you can identify a revolutionary moment when you see it. Or are you a resister? One might not know until later.

John Lewis encouraged folks to make “good trouble.” The phrase has become a movie and a meme. He said: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” The trouble with good trouble is, one doesn’t always realize when they are living in it, until after it’s done, and one is reading about it in a different context years or decades later.

Setting The Tone: Muffled and Distanced

While the Tech Department was quick to solve sound problems, board members had trouble hearing each other in person, and the viewers at home missed some speeches and detail when the sound wasn’t looped in correctly (eventually got synced up).

Frequent statements about hearing and understanding spoken by different members of the Board were made, which was ironic, since the public made a point to ask the Board to listen to them in their Public Comment speeches, and felt not heard:
”I'm having trouble understanding what my fellow Board members are saying.”
”Did you put out a motion? I'm sorry, I can't hear.”
”My glasses are fogging.”
”His microphone is bad. He says he can proceed without speaking.”
”Can you restate it?”
”Are you ‘Opposed‘? You have to state it.”

The video of the entire meeting is here.

A former Board member, Dennis S. Hallock Sr., who is also the youngest person to be on the board when he ran while still in high school, called in from his current home of Delaware. The call was to voice support for John, who is also on the younger side and a recent graduate of Beacon. Dennis stated that he has been following the BOE’s movements over the years, and asked the Board to “listen to the community please.” Dennis stated that he was impressed with John’s founding of The Label Foundation, an organization that has been active this summer in the Black community creating opportunities for young Black people.

The “Process”

The night of the Tuesday board meeting, the board lingered for a long time on the “process” of appointing 1 or 2 board members that evening. They had the opportunity to appoint 2 board members (of the 4 candidates who were all in attendance), but were unsure about if that was the fair thing to. A lengthy debate among themselves ensued, which was broadened by a disruption from the audience.

The Black community has lived within different processes their whole life of being in the United States. Laws have been created around the Black community since the Constitution was written. Amendments have been made to let them in or box them out as needed. Like the 14th Amendment that further defined who could be a citizen, and who could vote - males who were born here except “Indians who are not taxed” - and of those males, those who did not rebel or have a crime attached to them (women’s right to vote came in the 19th Amendment).

While the Board spoke of needing more diversity during the entire evening, they also spoke a lot about the need for process, framework, and a fair way of doing things. They also made a point to mention that a new person was interested in applying after the second vacancy happened a week prior, and wanted to open the door for that person to apply.

Determining “The Process”

Tensions were mounting as the Board deliberated if they should vote for 1 or 2 board members that night. Meredith read the 4 choices the Board has when faced with a vacancy:

  • Leave the seat open until the next election,

  • Go through an appointment process to fill the seat,

  • Hold a special election to fill the seat

  • Ask the BOCES superintendent to appoint for Beacon in M.

Antony Tseng explained his position: “My position on vacancies hasn't changed since the first vacancy. We should take this opportunity to appoint the Board member that is Black. My position still has not changed since then. Whatever process we follow to fill the second vacancy would be to the full. I think also the fact that there are so many people who want to be on the Board now is a stark difference since we didn't have enough people interested to run. Take it now while it's hot!”

Craig Wolf did not want to wait for an election in May 2021, and wanted to reopen for the 2nd appointment: “I'd be very nervous to leaving the decision to the next election since that is all the way up too May. That's way over half a year. We do have COVID. We have been lucky in Beacon to not have a lot of deaths, but we are not immune. But we have had sicknesses so bad that we can't...I'm amenable to a special election, now that we have 2 vacancies. It's a tough decision, of course, and the good news is, we had people step forward to serve.”

Kristan Flynn was in favor of appointing 1 that evening, and opening it up again: “I would support process to appoint someone to that seat, for sure. We have an opportunity. The one thing that I think that is about that tho, following that process...It's funny because I see a former board member (Kenya Gadsen) here who followed process and I learned a lot from, and sometimes from different angles. Following rules and process develops respect. The thing about having this new seat to appoint. We do need again to move the application forward of whoever applied to this last seat that we will talk about later. That we open it up and let people apply again. We had people who didn't apply on time. I would say that we should do a process to appoint that seat.”

Flora Stadler was in favor of appointing 1 that evening, and opening it up again: “When we did it, it was relatively quick. We hammered out what we wanted the application to say and look like . Going through that process again would be relatively quick and painless.”

Elissa Betterbid was in favor of appointing 1 that evening, and opening it up again: “I'm having trouble understanding what my fellow board members are saying. I'm in favor of restarting the process for the second seat…The problem the Board had at the that time was credibility. If we appoint someone from the first seat, that person should be part of the decision to appoint for the second seat.”

Anthony White, who was a bulldog during the 2016 midnight appointment situation (read Craig’s detailed report for ABS’ website here), was in favor of waiting until the election. “My position hasn't changed since the last time. This is a unique situation, and this is a daunting task. Looking at financial hardships, I feel that how are we to set that person up for success. We leave it vacant until the election. I think it elected and not appointed. When you keep on appointing, there are biases that boards innately have. Wait for election and keep it vacant.”

Meredith stated that an appointment doesn’t feel as good to her, “not as democratic.”

Antony Tseng made a motion to re-open the appointment. Kristan Flynn seconded it. Meredith suggested that the applications (those who already applied) should roll over. Then the Board couldn’t hear itself, and seemed to get lost in the details of how the opening of the second appointment process would work. Craig, the retired journalist, asked for clarification on what specifically the motion was for. Meredith began attempting to restate it.

The Interruption

The Board of Education Meeting after Board President Meredith Heuer called a Recess, and Anthony White encouraged her to have Board members get up from the table. Photo Credit: Board of Education

The Board of Education Meeting after Board President Meredith Heuer called a Recess, and Anthony White encouraged her to have Board members get up from the table.
Photo Credit: Board of Education

The people on the Zoom started typing in, asking if they could speak in a Public Comment. The people in physical attendance in the audience began shifting in their seats. Ali T. Muhammad shouted from the back of the room up to the Board members, asking them to listen to the community. They responded by telling him he was speaking out of turn.

Ali got up, approached the microphone, and began speaking. “Can you hear me now?” he asked, and then began imploring the Board to listen to the community, as Meredith, Craig, and Antony, told him he was talking out of turn.

It wasn’t until Anthony White told Ali to “please respect the Board,” that Ali raised his voice.

“Please respect us!” Ali yelled. Craig responded that yelling does not work.

“True,” Ali answered. “Yelling does not get us what we we want. And clearly, sitting there (motioning to the Black community on the left side of the room) and showing up doesn’t get us what we want either. You’re disrespecting every single person who showed up here.”

Meredith responded by threatening to call a Recess of the Board “if you can’t sit down.”

Ali responded: “Call the Recess.” Meredith responded: “Ok, I’m calling the Recess,” to which Ali followed up with: “Ok, thanks,” and returned to his seat with applause. Not before he reached his seat, however, candidate Barb Fisher spoke up for the first time of the evening to ask how this was helping her fellow candidate Jasmine, who Barb was sitting next to. “Excuse me, but how exactly does this include Jasmine in this conversation at all?” Barb went on to describe what the Board was doing, that they were waiting a month to the next appointment. Ali feared it was a year, and Barb corrected him to a month.

Ali questioned: “What do we need that one more month for?” to which Barb began to answer, but Ali cut her off each time. Barb stood up from her seat to match Ali’s height as he stood in the aisle, to begin telling him: “So that other members of the community…” but she was cut off again by Ali who retorted: “They had their chance. They could have ran.”

Then, Ali seemed to not know that Barb herself was a candidate, when he said: “If you’re paying attention, join in.” Craig Wolf spoke into the microphone about following the process, which fueled Ali. Barb quickly responded: “I did join in. I applied through this process along with Jasmine and John and my husband (Travis Fisher). And honestly, I’m happy to remove myself from this process,” as she gestured to Jasmine, implying she would remove herself to make room for Jasmine. Ali responded: “Then remove yourself! That would be the admirable decision.” To which Barb disagreed, and insisted on being removed as a point of “merit.”

The Board Leaves The Table

At this time, the Board was still sitting at the table. Until Anthony White suggested they walk away. Which they did, clutching their belongings and pacing behind their chairs, uncertain of what to do. The audience began asking the Board members when the next meeting was. Meredith returned to her microphone to reassure the public that the meeting was continuing, that they were just waiting to continue. The Board members began tossing their things back onto the table, and huffed into their seats.

While people in the audience were still talking among themselves, Meredith made a motion to resume the meeting, to which Flora seconded it. However, Antony Tseng suggested they wait a minute more, to which everyone agreed, except Anthony White, who addressed the people in the back take their conversation outside.

The Board voted to open the appointment up again for a 2nd application process for others to apply with a 6-1 vote, with Anthony White opposed. He wanted to wait until the election in May 2021.

The Nomination and Vote

The nomination and voting process went relatively quickly. The Board went over the process of how the election would work in 2021. There would be 4 open seats (2 resignation seats, and 2 current board member seats that would be up for reelection). Jeff Simms of the Highlands Current confirmed that the following Board members would be up for reelection: Flora Stadler and Elissa Betterbid.

Meredith gave each applicant the ability to speak one more time. Only Travis Fisher opted to speak from Zoom, but his microphone was bad and no one could understand him, so he gave up.

Meredith and Kristan continued the meeting by praising “process,” and the nominations began.

Antony Tseng nominated John Galloway Jr. Then Kristen Flynn nominated Jasmine Johnson. No other nominations were made. According to Meredith, of the candidates, a nomination must be made in order to vote on the person. Of that nomination, whoever is nominated first gets the first vote. Says Meredith to ALBB when asked how that process works: “John was the first to be nominated so his vote went first. Had his nomination passed, Jasmine could not have been nominated.” Essentially, Meredith confirmed, the order of nominations goes by whichever Board member is quickest to their buzzer.

Meredith proceeded to start the vote for John Galloway Jr.. Craig Wolf spoke up to voice his favor of John, but asked for clarification. Meredith needed to state the vote more clearly: “Are you in favor of the nomination of John Galloway?” Craig replied: “Yes.” The rest of the Board answered: “Opposed. Opposed. Opposed. Opposed.” Those in opposition would be Kristan, Flora, Elissa, Anthony and Meredith.

Meredith announced that the vote did not pass, 2-5. However, Anthony White pointed out that she herself did not say the word “Opposed,” to which she answered by stating into the microphone that she was Opposed.

Meredith opened the vote for Jasmine, to which everyone voted yes with an “Aye.” Meredith then announced the vote passed 7-0, and looked to Jasmine in the audience and said as a welcome: “Be careful what you wish for,” and went on to question when Jasmine would be sworn in.

Next Steps: John Galloway Continues, Travis Fisher Withdraws

ALBB reached out to the candidates to learn more about their intentions. Travis shared with us his letter of withdraw that he sent to the Board, stating: “It seems clear you will have at least one energetic candidate who brings diversity and much-needed community connections. If I would stay in the running it would be mostly to make sure again you have a choice of candidates with different strengths. But at this point I think it is clear that the strengths I offer are not what the Board most needs in the current moment.”

John Galloway Jr. intends to keep his application current for the next appointment in one month. If he is not selected, he intends to run in the next election. Barb Fisher intends to help Jasmine keep her appointed seat by helping Jasmin win the public election in May 2021.

A Little Beacon Blog reached out to Board members and some audience members for followup responses to the actions taken this evening. Read those responses in full here.

Style Note On Lighting

The lighting is very dark in these Board Of Education meetings, contributing to an ominous tone. Perhaps the lighting above the audience could also be turned on, which would create an immediate inclusive effect. The Board members themselves are barely lit, which is standard for how these meetings have gone have gone over the years. While these meetings are in a theater, the lighting does not have to be so dramatic.

In the Beacon City Council meetings, as well as Zoning and Planning, the lights are on in the entire room.

Editorial Transparency Note: Barb Fisher is the owner of Barb’s Butchery, which has been an advertiser with A Little Beacon Blog in the past. The business is a website design client of our parent company, Katie James, Inc. This did not influence the reporting, or the how or why this article was produced.