Silence is not Golden
Website riles school board



GUILDERLAND — Last Tuesday’s school board meeting began with a citizen’s call for civility and ended with a board discussion on ethics and free speech.

At the center was Peter Golden’s website.

Golden, a two-year Guilderland School Board member, is an author with a website — www.petergolden.com — that promotes his work. He is pictured wearing a trench coat and beret, in front of a bookshelf. The site also posts pictures of him interviewing and posing with a range of public figures — from George W. Bush to Mikhail Gorbachev to Yitzak Rabin.
The part that got to members of the school board, though, was "Boardside: Dispatches from the Education Wars."
Golden launched the "Boardside" — a play on "broadside" — in May, he told The Enterprise, and has about 3,000 visits a week.
Golden writes that he will distill what he has learned serving on the school board. "I promise some of it will be inspiring; some of it will be amusing; and if you care about the growing crisis in public education and its evil Siamese twin — intolerable property taxes — some of it will also break your heart."
He goes on to say that he is considering asking students to write for Boardside "but a lot of them aren’t very good at spelling or punctuation because, or so I’ve been told, neither of those skills contributes to being a good ‘critical thinker.’"
Golden concludes, "For the last two years, I have had one overarching goal: Not to live up to Mark Twain’s observation that ‘in the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.’"
In another piece, Golden takes issue with being a "Lifelong Learner" as a replacement for knowing basic facts. "Whenever people engage you in conversation," he writes, "you can’t keep running to the library or, let’s say, ask a mortician if he has an Internet connection in the embalming room. Pretty soon no one will invite you out."

Golden’s site includes three letters he wrote to the Enterprise editor — on culture change, middle-class debt, and the search for the common good.
It also incudes the definition of a word he invented — dronoid — derived from the words "drone" and "android," which he says "refers to Board of Education members who emit a boring, low-humming sound that is ofttimes confused with human speech and human thought."
Dronoids are "given to the knee-jerk authorizing of curriculum, policies and expenditures without thinking, researching, questioning, or dissenting," he writes. "Dronoids are often cited as the reason behind bloated school budgets and exploding property taxes."
"Sometimes perception can be reality," said Donald Csaposs, the resident who spoke at the start of the meeting. Csaposs, who works as development director for the town and is a long-time member of the school district’s budget advisory committee, told The Enterprise, "Peter’s website could be perceived as using school board membership to advance a for-profit business."

He urged the school board members to start the new year working together and said he couldn’t give Golden a passing grade.

The school board members themselves expressed a range of opinions about Golden’s site.
Board members, said President Richard Weisz, "don’t give up our rights as individuals to free speech." He called Golden’s site "avant- garde."
"I was very disappointed," said Vice President John Dornbush. "Some of the comments reflected what I construed to be a lack of respect for fellow board members....We don’t have to agree...but I think it’s hurtful to members of the board and to members of the community."
Thomas Nachod, the longest-serving board member who was participating in his last meeting, said, "I, too, was disappointed." The problem, he said, is what people perceive.
Nachod said students were hurt by the "cheap shot" about their being unable to spell. And he said the site showed "a total lack of respect" for administrators.
"The only thing that website promotes is yourself," said board member Colleen O’Connell.

She also told Golden that his website was not a blog. She defined a blog as a site were visitors can register and comment, creating a community.
"Parts of it I appreciated very much," said Denise Eisele. She said she respected Golden’s right to do it but cautioned against characterizing someone on the board or in the administration in a way that would be hurtful.
Cathy Barber said the website violates the board’s code of ethics. "There’s an understanding we won’t publicly criticize what has been a collective decision," she said. Barber said the board acts as a group, not as individuals.
"This undermines the group," said Barber. "That’s not productive. That doesn’t serve the community. The community wasn’t expecting we’d undermine the body to which we’d been elected."
"I saw it as satire and as free speech," said board member Barbara Fraterrigo.
Saying she is not "computer literate," Fraterrigo went on, "I see this as sort of a learning process...a growing process."
Referring to O’Connell’s comments, Fraterrigo suggested the site may become "a true blog."
"I think it’s a new age, a new adventure," said Fraterrigo. Everybody is capable of making a mistake and learning from that mistake...It would be nice to have a local blog where people could share ideas....It could be a very positive addition to our district."
Fraterrigo concluded, "It’s exciting to get feedback from throughout the world...New thoughts and new ideas can come in."

Peter Golden had the last word.
"The goal of the site," he said, "is to promote positive change."
He also said, "The answer to the criticism of free speech is more free speech."
He concluded by telling a story about his father taking him to Arlington National Cemetery when he was a child. He remembered his father, a World War II veteran, looking at the rows of gravestones and saying, "These people are the reason we can speak up, the reason we can vote. We respect them by doing both."

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Heard from Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders that the district is paying $86,500 annually for new state requirements in accounting and auditing.
Dornbush, who had requested the information, said there was "ample evidence" the district was doing a good job before the new requirements.
O’Connell proposed writing a letter to the state comptroller and state education commissioner objecting to "another unfunded mandate," which takes away from money spent on education.
Board member Hy Dubowsky said, statewide, "That’s a lot of dough to throw around."
Superintendent Gregory Aidala noted it was the law so districts have to comply, and he said, "Legislators often tell us...we got a bump in state aid."

Nevertheless, he said he would draft a letter;

— Heard from Aidala that the dean’s post at the high school will be returned to 12 months from 11 months a year.
Lisa Patierne, he said, is "doing a very good job" and has spent "a great deal of time and energy" on smoothing the transition for students from middle to high school.

Her title will be changed to assistant principal and her per-month salary will remain the same;

— Heard an update from Weisz on the search for a new superintendent of schools. Aidala is retiring in November.
The field has been narrowed from the original 23 candidates, he said, and committees of "stakeholders" will conduct two sets of interviews in July;

— Appropriated $100,000 from the fund balance into the tax certiorari reserve fund to pay judgments and claims under Real Property Tax Law;

— Authorized the purchase, for $175,000, of the two parcels of land on Route 20 in front of Guilderland elementary School, as approved by voters in May;

— Accepted an unspecified donation of money from Andre Garand;

— Approved state-required plans for professional development and school safety and received a plan for academic intervention to be voted on July 9;

— Approved raises for some substitutes.

The rate for substitute teachers at the elementary and middle schools went from $93 to $95 a day.

The rate for registered nurses went from $20 to $21 per hour and for licensed practical nurses from $18 to $18.50 an hour.

The rate for first-year tutors went from $22 to $24 an hour and for tutors in their second year or beyond from $30 to $31.50 per hour.
Eisele said her "eternal quest" is to get more money for teaching assistants; they earn $8.50 an hour.
"You can go to McDonald’s and make nine bucks an hour and eat all the hamburgers you want," said Dubowsky.
"We’re trying to be respectful of employees who negotiated contracts," responded Assistant Superintendent or Human Resources Susan Tangorre;

— Heard a glowing report from Dubowsky, Eisele, and O’Connell on their visit with the Guilderland High School group, Last Chance for Animals, which opposes dissection and vivisection in school labs.

Students currently can opt out but the group would like the practices banned entirely.

The Enterprise’s coverage of the issue can be accessed on-line at www.altamontenterprise.com, under "Archives" for March 29, 2007, under both "Guilderland" and "editorial."
O’Connell said she was "very impressed with the level of discourse."
"I’m not proposing a ban, but perhaps a discussion," said Eisele.

Dubowsky suggested looking at an opt-in policy; and

— Bid a fond farewell to Nachod, who is retiring from the board after 12 years, having served as both vice president and president. A banker, Nachod is leaving Guilderland to be president of a new bank on Long Island.
In presenting Nachod with a plaque, Weisz thanked him for his "insight and energy."
"I’ve always voted for a position, not a person," said Nachod, concluding, "It’s all about the kids."