BROCKTON – For a second consecutive year, the Brockton School Committee failed to elect a vice chair at its organizational meeting – the first meeting of the new calendar year – on Wednesday.
The Jan. 3 meeting marked the introduction of two new School Committee members – Ana Oliver of Ward 3 and Claudio Gomes of Ward 5 – who were elected in November. The seven members, alongside Mayor and School Committee Chair Robert Sullivan, would vote for who will serve as the body’s vice chair.
Nominees Kathy Ehlers and Tony Rodrigues split the vote 4-4, with the mayor causing a tie and triggering a revote. The second vote also failed, forcing the committee will reconvene next Tuesday for a third vote.
“This isn’t a good reflection and all of us realize that,” Sullivan said.
The election mirrored the previous year’s vote, which took three rounds to select Ehlers as 2023’s vice chair after two stalemates between Ehlers and then-incumbent Vice Chair Joyce Asack.
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Who voted for who?
At Wednesday night’s meeting, committee members Judy Sullivan, Tim Sullivan, Ehlers and the mayor cast their votes for Ehlers, while Rodrigues, Asack and the two new members voted in favor of Rodrigues.
“What Tony has done for us at South has been tremendous,” said Jim Stapleton, a teacher at South Middle School, at the meeting. Stapleton was one of four Brockton residents who spoke prior to the vote.
“He is, to me, the epitome, of a [School Committee member].”
“We went through a real rough year,” said Tim Sullivan. “We had a lot of things happen and Kathy has held us all together and I think she deserves another year.”
The mayor and Judy Sullivan said the vice chair should stay the same given the unprecedented past year that BPS has faced after announcing a $14.4 million budget deficit in fiscal year 2023.
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What is the vice chair’s role?
Ultimately, as many committee members pointed out, the vice chair holds just as much voting power throughout the year as any other member.
“There’s this idea that the vice chair has a certain power when in reality we all have it,” Rivas Mendes said at last year’s meeting on Jan. 3, 2023.
However, whoever serves as vice chair will act as the committee chair if Sullivan – the chair – is unavailable. They also represent the committee as a whole as the body’s public-facing member.
“Vice chair just simply represents us in the face, in the sense of when there’s a crisis happening and there needs to be a statement or something like that,” Rivas-Mendes said last year. “The vice chair has to adapt to the situation we are in.”
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“When members reach out to you, you need to be familiar with our policies and things we go through on a daily basis,” said then-vice chair at last year’s meeting. “It’s keeping us out of trouble, knowing the rules, knowing the open meeting law.”
What went down last year?
Exactly one year before, the committee voted Ehlers to be vice chair after two rounds of a split vote 4-4, again with the mayor creating the tie. The same four members who voted for Ehlers this year did so last year, as well. Rodrigues, Asack, and former committee members Cynthia Rivas-Mendes and Jared Homer voted for Asack.
Homer, who did not run for re-election in November, switched the tie in Ehlers’ favor in the third and final round of voting.
In 2023, Sullivan retained his vote for Ehlers despite it leading to a tie, and he said he chose Ehlers in order to bring in a new face to the position.
“I come from the City Council, 14 years, and every year we change,” he said during last year’s meeting. “We change out. I would ask at some point maybe the school committee could continue thinking about doing that. I just think it’s good practice.”
This year he voted in favor of Ehlers again to ensure consistency given the position the district is in at this time.
“Last year at this time, what I said was I believe as a former city councilor it’s good to change every year,” the mayor said Wednesday night. “In a normal year it’s good. This isn’t a normal year ladies and gentlemen. We have a multi-million-dollar deficit we have to deal with.”
“It’s not a normal year and that’s why we need new leadership,” Rodriguez said.
When the committee votes again
The committee will meet for a special meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 9 to hold a third vote for the board’s vice chair position.
Although no one from the pubic spoke at last year’s meeting, four residents took to the podium this year to speak in favor of Rodrigues – including Rivas-Mendes, a BHS parent and two South Middle School teachers.
“We need effective and active leadership,” said Mary LaCivita, who’s child attends Brockton High School. “I think we need someone who can be inclusive and who can think about our student body here, which is mostly not white.”
