Petitions circulate, questions percolate

GUILDERLAND — As the school board debates policy on campaign leafleting, the three incumbents — Catherine Barber, John Dornbush, and Peter Golden — are circulating petitions for re-election.

Candidates’ petitions, with at least 63 signatures, are due in the district office on April 21. According to the board’s clerk, Linda Livingston, five people, including the three incumbents, have picked up petitions; as of Monday, none had been returned.

At the same time, a group of social-studies teachers is questioning the role of the teachers’ union in the May 20 election.

The Guilderland Teachers’ Association last week “pushed” a resolution through to support Barber and Dornbush and will offer to pay for signs and ads on their behalf, write eight high-school social studies teachers in a letter to the Enterprise editor, published this week.

The teachers, who lost their supervisor this year as the post was merged with that of the English supervisor, are highly critical of the union president, Chris Claus.

“I will be offering no one money,” Claus told The Enterprise on Monday. “The union has given me permission to approach the candidates once petitions have been filed… I’ve been authorized to offer no one money.”

Claus said he was “disturbed” that the April 10 meeting was being discussed in the press when the minutes have not yet been approved.

It is “premature,” he said, to talk or write about candidates’ getting union support since no one is officially a candidate until after April 21 and “the person has to be open to support.”

“If not, there’s no GTA involvement. Period,” said Claus. “I don’t see that as news.”

“The high school recently surveyed its members and found that 75 percent rejected the idea of any monetary support, whether in the form of a cash donation or the purchase of materials,” write the social studies teachers.

 Claus said that “sounded pretty accurate” but pointed out that the high school is just one of seven buildings.

He also said, “Obviously, I have rubbed some members of the social studies department the wrong way.”

Claus, after six years at the helm of the Guilderland Teachers’ Association, did not seek re-election this year. Maceo Dubose, a middle-school counselor currently serving as the GTA vice president, was elected president and will assume office July 1. He ran unopposed.

Claus, 56, is a reading teacher at the high school. Asked why he didn’t seek re-election, he said, “I’m close to retirement...I want to be able to teach without being the union president, and to help my successor.”

The three school board incumbents expressed a range of opinions when The Enterprise asked them last week about union endorsement and about campaigning on school grounds.

“I don’t think candidates accept or reject support,“ said Barber, adding, “Board candidates are not political. We’re not endorsed by parties or groups per se.”

 About leafleting, she said, “I did not do it before. I always felt like it would bother people.”

Dornbush said last week that he would accept an endorsement from the GTA. “I respect the union,” he said. “I think they’re honorable.” He pointed out that, because of his job at the University of Albany, he is a member of the New York State United Teachers, with which the GTA is affiliated.

Dornbush said he had never leafleted on school grounds, and never been handed a leaflet there either.

Golden said on leafleting, “This idea of shutting down free speech...[is] a very bad example to set for children. Children should be exposed to all kinds of opinions.”

Golden said he knew he would not be offered union support. “If you want less accountability and higher taxes, then you should vote for the union candidates.” he said.

The union and the school board do not have “identical” interests, he went on. “In Guilderland, it’s been portrayed that the union speaks for the schoolchildren...No, the bottom line is the board speaks for the community and the schoolchildren...School boards were started to rein in the excess of professional educators....That’s why it’s so dangerous when boards start to view themselves as part of the administration.“

A collaborationist?

Matthew Nelligan, a social studies teacher and the first signer of the letter, said offering candidates money “corrupts the process.” He went on, “This is a non-partisan school-board election. ... Chris makes the only decision about what is a good school-board member...I think it is a complete sham. This is a Boss Claus operation.”

Nelligan said he is “hopeful” things will change under Dubose. “What you’ve had is the equivalent of Tammany Hall,” said Nelligan. He said Claus’s predecessor, Sean O’Neill, a middle -school resource-room teacher, “cared about bread-and-butter labor isues.” Nelligan went on, “Chris is a collaborationist...He’s on the administrative council. He won’t stand up to the people he sits down with.”

Claus responded through The Enterprise, “My ability to work with members of the school administration and members of the board of education is something I’m pretty proud of.”

Claus declined to comment on the allegations in Nelligan’s letter about last year’s elections. “Last year was last year,” he said, “and it was dealt with.”

Claus was willing to talk about the process this year for choosing candidates to support. He said last week, “I have invited building-level leaders to have discussions” about the three incumbents. The representative council, made up of the four district leaders, and seven building presidents, and building representatives, would then discuss whom to support.

Claus said of offering union support, “We’ll only do so if it’s welcome.” He said he is “always prepared” to be turned down, but concluded, “It has never happened.”

Unlike in previous years, there will be no survey for candidates to fill out. The surveys, Claus said, were “not that helpful” and often were returned late.

“If a non-incumbent...wants support from the union, it’s their responsibility to contact the union,” said Claus.

Claus concluded of the role of the union in an election, “It’s in the interest of the school district to have a good board. What’s in the interest of the teachers is in the interest of the school district.” Claus, who regularly attends school board meetings, said that it’s important to support “people good for the board.”

He went on, “Unions have a long history of being politically active. It’s generally supported, praised, and even expected.”

GTA history

Six years ago, when The Enterprise interviewed Claus and O’Neill as the union leadership changed hands, Claus said the union had “evolved” beyond what his father warned against: “Don’t become a floor-stomping professional.”

He said, “I want this to be win-win, where the teachers and school district work together for the good of the students.”

O’Neill said that, when he arrived in Guilderland, the GTA was “a union under siege.” It was September of 1973, he said, soon after the Taylor Law (the part of the state’s Civil Service Law that defines the limits and rights of unions for public employes) was passed in New York and the superintendent, Thomas Looby, was “a brilliant man but a bit of an autocrat.” O’Neill said, “He didn’t know how to deal with people.“

Things opened up under his successor, said O’Neill. “Peter Alland had the vision and invited people to participate,” said O’Neill. Alland was followed by Harold McCarthy; he had spent his career at the district, beginning as a teacher, and he placed the union president on the administrative council for the school district.

“That was unheard of in New York State,” said O’Neill. “He took a risk.”

As the district grew, so did the number of teachers and the power of the union. O’Neill estimated that, in the mid-eighties, the union had about 230 members. Now the GTA has 750 members.

Money first offered last year, cards sent

Last year, for the first time, the union offered $500 to the two candidates it supported — Colleen O’Connell and Gloria Towle-Hilt. O’Connell, an incumbent, accepted the support of the union but not the money. “I don’t need the money,” she said at the time. “I’m just not comfortable with it.”

Towle-Hilt, O’Connell’s running mate, who retired last year from teaching at Farnsworth Middle School, accepted both the endorsement and the funds from the GTA.

“It means they‘re supporting me as an individual who thinks for herself,” she said at the time. “I have a reputation for making the best possible choices for children.”

Each estimated she would spend a little over $500 for campaign signs and palm cards. They came in first and second in a five-way race for three seats.

Additionally, the union sent out cards just before the election in support of the budget and of O’Connell and Towle-Hilt, using a list of addresses of students’ homes obtained from the school district.

The year before, cards had been sent out in support of the budget and candidate Richard Weisz, who won. This year, concerns were raised by Golden that releasing the directory information was illegal — either in violation of state law that prohibits school districts from campaigning or in violation of a federal act that protects students’ privacy.

In last year’s election, Barbara Fraterrigo, an incumbent, held onto her seat, coming in third. She ran with two newcomers; all three of them were endorsed by Guilderland Parents Advocate, a group that had been critical of the way the district teaches reading, 

One of Fraterrigo’s running mates, Carolyn Kelly, who had filled out and returned a questionnaire for the GTA but had not received the union’s endorsement, said the day after her defeat, “It’s unfortunate postcards went out from the GTA on Saturday, supporting their chosen candidates. That’s a huge expense; it obviously worked...I don’t know if any parent can work past that type of machine.”

Fraterrigo spent her own money to have 100 signs printed at $4 each and made her own flyers. She and her running mates planned to distribute flyers at school events as she had in years past, but were stopped by the superintendent at the time, Gregory Aidala.

“We have to maintain the appearance of not permitting partisan activities on school grounds,” Aidala said at the time.

The board is currently debating its policy on campaigning. (See related story.)

Controversy over directory information

The board’s policy committee has drafted a policy this year that will prohibit the release of the list in the future, which the board is slated to vote on at its next meeting. And Claus has said the union will not use the list in this year’s election.

“The board was clearly struggling with the question,” he told The Enterprise last week. “We felt it was appropriate to give them a chance to figure it out.”

He cited comments made by board member Denise Eisele that not using the list this year was the ethical thing to do.

Asked if he had any regrets about using the list the last two years, Claus said, “I have none, none at all...We made a Freedom of Information Law request that was appropriately granted. I have no apology.

Claus told The Enterprise in January that he got the idea from a New York State United Teachers workshop that “gave suggestions on being more politically active.”

Nelligan’s letter cites a quote from NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn that he hadn’t advised members to use the Freedom Of Information Law to get students’ home addresses.

Claus said last week that one of the people attending the workshop recommended getting the list, as other schools do. “Ideas pop out,” he said of attending workshops.

Korn said this week, “NYSUT regularly and routinely does workshops on communicating and how to work to pass the school budget…One of the things we talk about is obtaining lists of people who voted in previous elections and of obtaining lists of people who are likely to support the budget. The particulars are different in every school district.”

Those lists, he said, can be of union members in the district; of booster club members; of registered voters; or, for school districts that have the appropriate policies in place, of students’ home addresses.

Korn said of the latter, “We have 1,400 bargaining units, including over 700 school districts. I know for a fact other districts provide these lists.”

Korn also said of Claus, “Chris is a wonderful leader, a hardworking president, a man of integrity.”

Consolidating supervisors’ posts

The letter from the social studies teachers ends by saying that “the GTA leadership has largely fiddled while Rome burned,” stating the leadership has not dealt with job elimination and changes in working conditions imposed by the district, presumably a reference to the consolidation of the supervisors’ post.

Patricia Hansbury-Zuendt, formerly the English department chair, now supervises 44 people in both the English and social-studies departments.

When The Enterprise asked her earlier this month if the faculty is satisfied with the change, she said, “I have not had any loud vociferous complaints.”

Claus, as a reading teacher, is one of the 44 people supervised by Hansbury-Zuendt, and has no complaints about it. He said last week that, formerly, every department at the middle school and high school had its own chair. “As people retired, consolidation has occurred,” he said. “You’d have to be asleep at the switch not to see that it’s a reasonable thing to be considered at the high school.”

Superintendent John McGuire has said he will conduct an analysis of the supervisory role at Guilderland.