In a March Op-Ed in the Jersey City Times, former Board of Education Trustee Gina Verdibello gave voice to concerns that the Jersey City Education Association has too much control over board decisions. It’s an issue that is front and center as seven candidates vie for three open seats on November 5.“A failure to show sufficient deference to the JCEA has consequences,” wrote Verdibello. “In public comments, the JCEA President unfairly branded me and some other former members as ‘rogue’ for raising concerns we had with board leadership in closed sessions that they should not even have been a party to. What the public needs to understand is that these actions were allowed with impunity.”Verdibello wrote the Op-Ed after losing her bid for reelection without JCEA support.That the union has been successful in getting its preferred candidates elected isn’t open to dispute. All nine of the current trustees were endorsed by JCEA. In the last 10 Board of Education elections, JCEA-backed candidates were elected to all open positions seven times.  The JCEA has also backed Superintendent of Schools Dr. Norma Fernandez. Current board President Dejon Morris, who ran with JCEA support, says that while the union holds a lot of power, its influence depends on the strength and character of the trustees.“The JCEA is a powerful union with great membership. But when interviewed, I indicated to them that I was an independent thinker. So all their suggestions are welcome, but ultimately, it is the decision of the trustee and the board whether they want to carry out with it,” he said.Morris also emphasized that the JCEA is not the only union the board interacts with nor are teachers the only group with stakes in the board’s decisions.“We have five unions in the Board of Education and we have to be able to work with all of them. They all try to have influence, but I can honestly say that I have not experienced any intimidation or forms of convincing or swaying of any kind,” he said. “And as a leader of the board, I try to make sure that the trustees also understand that they are duly elected officials and, regardless of who the endorsement was, they still have an obligation to the the taxpayer and more importantly the 27,000 scholars that were tasked with overseeing.” The board has been under a spotlight following what many described as a “coup” in March in which Morris, in a surprise vote, supplanted then-president Natalia Ioffe. In response, both the JCEA and superintendent Fernandez called for state intervention.Verdibello, who served from 2016 to 2023, says she would not have been elected in the first place without the union’s endorsement.“It’s the only way in. Because they have money and they have a built-in base. So even before you get to election day, they’ve already won because they have people calling, they have people doing absentee ballots, they have people doing all that stuff prior,” she said.While she believes that doesn’t always mean the union is interfering with the board or working against its interests, “at a certain point, I also think that we need more representation from parents that are involved and the public in general.”Sangeeta Ranade, who ran without a JCEA endorsement and served on the board from 2011 to 2014, becoming president in 2014, is more critical of the union’s influence.“We do know that with the endorsement of the union come expectations that one will respond to their asks. I mean, I think that’s very clear when you see how they vote,” she said.“In those rooms when we have the closed-door conversations, that’s when you wish you could unsee what you saw because it is not in the interest of the children of the district. They are being asked to do something because that’s the deal that they made, and they’ve decided it doesn’t matter what information is put in front of them. They have their decision made, and that decision appeared to be very well informed by the union,” she said, referring to some of the JCEA supported trustees.According to Ranade, JCEA President Ron Greco continuously tried to get in the ears of board trustees. “It is very well known that he calls board members, he lines up votes the way that he believes supports his constituents. I think oftentimes what serves the teachers serves the students, but sometimes there are differences. And I think it can get super ugly when he does not get what he wants.”Contract negotiations highlighted the problem, she says. “Anybody who was endorsed by the union was getting calls from the union … they were being asked to do things in negotiations when we are not supposed to talk about negotiations outside of the negotiating team.”The union and its supporters, says Ranade, launched vitriolic attacks on her. “They posted things about me on Facebook where they called me a terrorist, which I considered mildly racist, they posted things about my children.” Ron Greco and Sangeeta Ranade traded accusations over the status of contract negotiations at a 2015 meeting. Courtesy of Hudson County ViewMatthew Schapiro, who served on the board from 2017 to 2019, pointed to a situation with Sudhan Thomas, a former board president found guilty of embezzlement and wire fraud, as a prime example of union influence. According to Schapiro, Thomas and another former board member were negotiating privately with the union without board authority or direction, a violation of the ethics code.“We’re talking about a billion-dollar teachers contract. He did that on his own … in secret,” he said. “And then he brought it to the entire board, and everyone had a conflict of interest except me. So they passed what’s called the Doctrine of Necessity because they didn’t have enough board members to vote on it.”Typically, board members are prohibited from voting on matters in which they may have a conflict of interest, but the Doctrine of Necessity allows them to vote despite the conflict.At the time, Schapiro filed an ethics complaint with the State Ethics Commission, but the board voted to pass the new contract anyway.Carol Lester, who was elected to the board in 2009 and served as its vice president from 2011 to 2012, agreed that the union interfered with board members during contract negotiations.Both Lester and Schapiro said the union negotiated contracts that favored veteran teachers and administrators at the expense of younger union members. New teachers’ salaries were left lower than competing districts’, even with the knowledge that this could prevent the district from bringing in new, dynamic, high-performing teachers. “The union is very top-heavy for the more established members, right? The people who are not even in the classroom anymore get paid a lot more than people who are in the classroom. It’s like the prize to end up in the administration building,” Lester said.In 2022, former board president Mussab Ali, who is now running for Jersey City mayor, described his efforts to rebalance the pay rates. “When we went into our negotiation, I remember when I looked at teachers’ salaries, we were just not competitive at an entry level.” However, according to Ali at the end of the negotiation, newer teachers got the bulk of the raises. “A new teacher went from $54 to $61 thousand. The elder teachers, which is about fifty percent of the union along with the union leadership, got a $500 increase.” Ali had run with the backing of the JCEA.The JCEA isn’t the only deep-pocketed group that has tried to influence the board. In 2019, Alexander Hamilton was elected to the board under the “Change for Children” banner that was supported by the Lefrak real estate organization. Hamilton says Lefrak made no demands. “Their whole thing was ‘We care about Jersey City; we would like for the schools to get better, and why can’t we get involved on that level?'”For Hamilton, the developer’s interests were aligned with parents’. “Developers want land values to go up … one of the key indicators in that is a good school system … their whole motto was ‘How is [the budget] a billion dollars, and the schools are still not good?'”Hamilton says he saw how the union would interfere with board decisions. “Without naming names, I know people would get texts even during meetings about about how they should conduct themselves or how they should vote … that still goes on now.”Asked what the union’s priorities were, Hamilton responded, “controlling the budget … controlling the whole operation is really what their goal always is.”Hamilton doesn’t question the union’s concern for the students. “Everyone wants what’s best for the kids, but ultimately when you make decisions about budgets … those also affect everything else.”The union’s influence, says Hamilton, made it impossible for him to achieve what he wanted. “I got stymied on looking into budgets on a detailed level, I got stymied on doing a national search for a superintendent.” Though he says Superintendent Norma Fernandez is qualified, the board had announced that it would do a national search and went so far as to bring state officials in to show them how to do it. Despite the public promise, the board ultimately chose not to go through with the search. “You had union leadership showing up at the meeting addressing the public … saying ‘Cut the charades out, cut the nonsense, we got Dr. Fernandez, we’re good, make her the superintendent.’ He showed up to like two or three meetings and yelled at us.”Hamilton believes there’s a place for the union in district governance. “I’m not saying the union can’t have a place at the table, but they can’t have the whole table.”In 2022, Hamilton lost his seat to the union-backed slate named Education Matters. The win meant JCEA-backed candidates occupied all nine seats on the board.In March, Greco spoke to the Jersey City Times and rejected the charge of undue union influence, pointing to the Morris-lead coup as an example of a union-supported trustee bucking the wishes of the JCEA.“It’s alway a risk. You take a chance when you try to endorse people that you hope will do well and serve the board well.”At the same time, Greco was unapologetic about what the union wants from the candidates it supports. “Do we ask people to support our contracts? Yes, absolutely … did we ask please support Norma Fernandez, give her a shot as superintendent? Yes, we did.”Greco did not respond to a request for comment for this article.The Jersey City Education Association is supporting the Education Matters slate in the November 5 election as shown in this Facebook post.For the upcoming election, JCEA has endorsed the Education Matters ticket (the slate of candidates it has historically endorsed) which includes trustee Natalia Ioffe, Ahmed Kheir, and Melany Cruz Burgos. Councilman Daniel Rivera, Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea, and Hudson County Democratic Organization Chair Craig Guy have also thrown their weight behind the team.All three Education Matters candidates maintain that the union’s endorsement does not compromise their dedication to Jersey City’s students, families, and community. “The teachers’ union, like other groups and elected officials, endorsed me and my running mates because they believe in our vision for our schools,” said Cruz Burgos, emphasizing that her acceptance of the union’s endorsement came “with no strings attached.”For her part, Ioffe says that criticism of her endorsement “unnecessarily maligns public school educators” and maintains that her values and standards “have not changed” since running two prior independent campaigns. Kheir added that while he is honored by the union’s trust in endorsing the Education Matters ticket, his team’s decisions are “made with integrity, guided by both heart and conscience. While the teachers have made no demands, they are essential stakeholders—along with parents and, above all, our students. We value their input and will always consider it thoughtfully in making the best decisions for our schools.”Four other candidates are running without union support. Matt Schneider, a business strategist and owner of a mental health practice, and Tia Rezabala, a former high school teacher are running under the “For Stronger Schools” banner and have the support of Ward E Councilman James Solomon and Council President Joyce Watterman.Sumit “Sam” Salia and Miriam Tawfiles are running are also running as independents. In August, the Jersey City Times profiled all of the candidates. Despite the JCEA’s claim that the board members it endorses will ultimately exercise independence, some critics are doubtful. Says Lester, “If the union was not interested in having power as players in the Board of Education, they wouldn’t back candidates and put so much money behind them and try to get them to win.”The post Election Prompts Questions About the Power of Teachers’ Union appeared first on Jersey City Times.