New York City Removes Two Parents From School Councils Over Behavior
The New York Times
One parent led a push to review rules around transgender athletes. The other had encouraged pro-Palestinian student activism. The chancellor said their conduct at parent meetings crossed a line.
Two elected parent leaders in New York City were removed from their school council positions on Friday, a rare step by school officials that reflected the escalating fights over broader political and cultural issues in local schools.
The remarkable move by the schools chancellor, David C. Banks, appeared to be the first time that the administration has removed elected parent leaders from their posts. It came after both parents had faced months of public backlash over issues including rules regarding transgender students in sports and the Israel-Hamas war.
One of the parents, Maud Maron, was rebuked by the schools chancellor after an education news outlet, The 74, reported that she wrote “there is no such thing as trans kids” in a private text chat. And when a student newspaper ran an anonymous opinion column accusing Israel of genocide, Ms. Maron, a parent at the school, was quoted by The New York Post as saying that the “byline should read coward instead of anonymous.”
The other parent, Tajh Sutton, was accused by parents in a federal lawsuit of imposing “a far-reaching political speech code” on debate in public school-council meetings, which included restricting some members of the public and the press from joining. The parents also took issue with her promoting a student walkout to call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Both Ms. Maron and Ms. Sutton were elected to two-year terms on local community education councils, which represent the public school system’s 32 districts. The groups mainly advise on education policy and do not have major power. But some councils have seen a substantial uptick in vitriol in recent months.
Mr. Banks’s decision to remove the two parents, which was confirmed by a City Education Department official, came after the department sent letters to them in April, warning that they would face suspension or removal if their conduct did not change.
