Compromise in Longmeadow is the smart play

Did unfair treatment of the vanquished after World War I help produce World War II? Sorry, this question is a bit out of my wheelhouse, but I can tell you that if the Longmeadow School Committee doesn’t acknowledge and deal forthrightly with its present fracture, the future with or without the present superintendent will be marked with distrust and disruption. In my experience, few hold grudges like suburban activists scorned.

Three weeks ago in a post titled Let the Longmeadow voters have their say I described the controversy over the Longmeadow School Committee’s 4 to 3 vote not to renew the superintendent’s contract. Last night I watched the latest School Committee meeting to find that the committee’s majority was trying to pull off a full Belichick… “We’re on to a new Superintendent search.” Unfortunately for the four members who voted not to retain the superintendent, opponents of the non-renewal are not going away. For the fourth meeting in a row last night around 100 supporters of the embattled superintendent packed the committee meeting room with signs of support for their man, despite the fact that the meeting would not include public comments or participation. The spectacle of the meeting about a new superintendent search in front of an audience of sign holding supporters of the current superintendent had a surreal quality.

The elephant in the room wasn’t just big and hard to miss. It also has a leg to stand on. Mitigating strongly against “moving past” the superintendent controversy is the fact that the three members who continue to support the present superintendent have the votes to prevent the committee from actually hiring a new superintendent. One of the three even pointed that out at last night’s meeting to no immediate effect. Furthermore, the superintendent’s supporters have organized a campaign to amend the town charter by adding a recall provision that would then be used to attempt to recall the four School Committee members who ousted the superintendent.

None of this opposition to the committee majority are going away anytime soon. Opponents of the committee’s majority have options and they are showing no signs of backing down. Will this go the way a Belichick press conference goes? Will the dogged questioners wilt in the face of unrelenting disdain from the podium? It sure doesn’t seem like that and even if the committee majority’s critics retreat from this fight their dissatisfaction will almost certainly be visited upon the superintendent hired to replace the one they fought so hard to retain. In fact, part of the narrative of the present controversy is the nagging suspicion that some of the critics of the present superintendent are consciously or unconsciously motivated by their own dissatisfaction with the results of the hiring process that brought the current superintendent to Longmeadow in the first place.

We all know the popular definition of crazy, right? It’s time for the Longmeadow School Committee to break the cycle. It’s time for this latest battle of wills to be resolved in a rational and reasonable way that will leave neither side vindicated or vanquished. A compromise on the real issue, on the immediate fate of the current superintendent has to be brokered NOW… before moving on. Moving on without fully and transparently engineering a deal that gives both sides something would be crazy by definition.

What would a reasonable compromise look like? First, it would require both sides to honestly acknowledge their opponents’ prerogatives and power. The four committee members who effectively fired the superintendent have the right to refuse to reconsider the superintendent’s contract and to put other matters, including a new superintendent search, on the committee’s agenda. Along with the Longmeadow citizens who support this approach, these members have a right to frame their actions as appropriate and to claim that anyone who disagrees must respect the will of the committee’s majority by simply “moving on.” Of course, the opposition includes virtually all of the teachers and administrators in the school district and a relatively small but very active group of parents in town. These folks are and will be active and vocal school district stakeholders for years to come and they have the right to resist this call to “move on” by supporting efforts of the three members of the committee on their side to prevent the hiring of a replacement for the present superintendent, which requires a supermajority (i.e. 5-2) vote of the committee, and/or by supporting the ongoing recall campaign. How could the prerogatives and perspectives of both sides be respectfully compromised?

The easiest way to acknowledge that the committee majority’s decision was legitimate without leaving so many school district stakeholders with a bad taste in their mouths would be to delay the process of hiring a replacement for the present superintendent until Longmeadow’s voters, a group who’s sentiments on this fight remain largely unknown, have been given an opportunity to weigh in.

There are at least two ways to accomplish this. The committee could approve Committeeman Armand Wray’s wise proposal to give the superintendent a brief contract extension. If this is unacceptable to the superintendent’s critics on the committee, they could agree to merely suspend the search for a new superintendent until June, at which time the will of the town’s voters on this issue can be ascertained and acted upon. While this second route could create a brief period without a superintendent in place, a brief period of discontinuity would be far preferable to the sustained undercurrent of distrust and disgust that will almost certainly prevail going forward without a satisfactory compromise on this issue. Allowing voters to weigh in does not reflect disrespect or even disagreement with either side’s substantive position on the present superintendent’s performance. That’s part of its virtue. It defuses stubborn disagreement by allowing for a procedural remedy, the verdict of which can more easily be “moved on” from than could a direct substantive rebuke.

This second route will allow the 4-3 School Committee non-renewal decision to stand, respecting the prerogatives and perspective of the four members who, following their best judgment and sense of public responsibility, made that difficult call. The downside of this approach for critics of the non-renewal decision is that the current superintendent may accept a job in another town by June. However, having allowed enough time to pass to let voters have their say, and for the newly constituted School Committee to have its say, the anger of the present superintendent’s supporters at the School Committee’s present majority should be mitigated.  Unmitigated political anger and distrust will not fade away and will do ongoing damage to the community’s efforts to maintain one of the best school systems in the state.

Now is not the time for goal line stands. Competing notions about the proper role of local elected decision makers need to be sidelined right now, not stoically exemplified. The Longmeadow schools community needs to agree to a procedural compromise now and be willing to accept the policy consequences of an intervening election.

Allowing voters to ratify or change a decision as important as this is a sign of political good health and confidence in the wisdom and prudence of the community and its elected leaders. It’s an opportunity to model the kind of conflict resolution, teamwork, healthy competition, and fair play that we are trying to teach in our highly successful schools. In this case it is also the best way to avoid an acrimonious fight characterized by parliamentary hardball that would do lasting damage to the community.

The genius of American-style democracy is that it is designed to foster sustained argument, competition, and compromise, not to settle matters permanently.  In discerning and acting on the public interest in our system avoiding “final victories” is crucial to good governance. Close or even acrimonious elections are much more consistent with our democratic values and less destructive of community cohesion than close, controversial votes by elected officials. A 4-3 vote on what many consider the most significant issue faced by School Committees is a verdict about which no one should ever be sanguine.

The future of Longmeadow schools belongs in the hands of all the stakeholders. Let the voters be Belichick-like on this one. Let them “do their jobs.”