Dr. John Lumley, of the National Education Association, your statement will be included in the hearings.

Statements of the District of Columbia Education Association, by Mrs. Ellen Datcher, president, and a letter from Lelia Lane, will be included in the hearings.

(The documents referred to by the Chairman follow :)

STATEMENT OF MRS. GILBERT A. HARRISON, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CITIZENS FOR BETTER PUBLIC EDUCATION, INC.

Our organization believes that an elected school board in the District of Columbia could help to bring the community and the schools together in an important and vital way. Since early this year, we have been studying various proposals for an elected school board for the District; and we are grateful for this opportunity to share with this Committee some of our findings and recommendations.

We support in general and in principle the elected school board bill (H.R. 12554) under consideration here today. In particular, I want to commend the work of the sponsors of the bill in arriving at (1) the combination arrangement of representation (some members elected from wards and some from at large), and (2) the provision for compensation of board members. The legislative resolution of these problems in the bill makes it unnecessary for me to develop in this statement the numerous reasons in support of these provisions. Rather I would like to use this statement to recommend to the consideration of this Committee six suggested amendments to the bill which we feel are important.

ONE AT-LARGE MEMBER ELECTED IN EVERY ELECTION

I recommend that the bill be amended to ensure that at least one at-large member is up for election in each election year. As the legislation now stands, it is possible that all the at-large members will come up for election in one election year, and none in the next. The decision is left up to lot-to chance. We feel it is important that, in every election year, there is at least one at-large member runing for office. For one reason, this will encourage city-wide participation in school affairs and problems through elections at least once every other year. For another, it will guarantee that the incoming at-large member(s) to the board will have at least one experienced at-large member to whom he can turn for advice and guidance. Dr. Harry Passow, director of the recent Columbia Teachers College study of the Washington schools, has expressed to our organization his strong recommendation that such a provision be included in the bill.

It seems that the amendment could be made quite easily. For example, on page 2 of the bill, the first sentence of subsection (b) could be changed to read as follows:

"(b) of the members of the board of education initially elected, five four members elected from wards and one elected at large shall serve for terms of two years and the remaining six members for terms of four years." I recommend, therefore, that, on page 2 of the bill, subsection (b) be amended(1) by striking out in line 10 "five" and inserting "four members elected from wards and one elected at large"; and

(2) by inserting after the word "and" in line 10 the words "the remaining".

THE PROBLEM OF DUAL COMPENSATION

I recommend that the bill be amended to ensure that the compensation provided by the bill will be equally available to all board members, regardless of the nature of their civilian employment.

The problem is, there is a federal statute (U.S.C., T.5, sec. 3105) that would seem to have the effect of depriving some members of the board any compensation by virtue of the fact that they were also Federal or District employees. The inequitable result would be that some members of the board would qualify to receive up to $2,400 in compensation, and yet other members-by virtue of the nature of their civilian employment-would not be able to receive even reimbursement for transportation expenses, parking expenses, for meals bought dur

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ing extended board meetings, or for baby-sitters. The long and the short of it is that, under existing law, some members would be eligible to receive a small flat sum to help cover their expenses, and others would be forced, by virtue of their membership on the board, to suffer direct financial loss.

There seems to be no real disagreement about the need to remedy this inequity. Dr. Passow considers it essential to the healthy operation of the board. Moreover, the relevant provision of law, on the face of it, was not designed to prohibit this kind of compensation/reimbursement for civic services; and a look at the existing exemptions makes this clear. The problem, rather, seems to be one of language.

I recommend that on page 12, at the end of the bill, the following section be added:

"SEC. 4. Subsection (d) of the Act of August 19, 1964 (relating to dual compensation of Federal and District employees) is amended

"(1) by inserting a new subsection: '(6) members of the District of Columbia board of education;' and

"(2) by renumbering existing subsections (6) and (7) respectively as subsections (7) and (8).”

and, on page 2 of the bill at the end of subsection (b), the following provision be added:

"A member's right to compensation under this section shall not be abridged by the fact of his employment in the Federal or District government."

EXECUTIVE SESSIONS

I also recommend that the existing language with regard to open meetings of the board be amended so that the board will not be prohibited from meeting occasionally and informally with the superintendent to discuss new and complex problems. I recommend further that the board be allowed to retire occasionally to executive sessions to discuss three types of sensitive problems: staff personnel problems, misconduct of pupils, and the purchase of school sites.

The problem with the existing language ("All meetings of the board of education shall be open to the public, except committee meetings dealing with the appointment of teachers.") is that it has been so interpreted that practically the only way the superintendent can meet informally with the board to tell them what he has been thinking about, and to toss around ideas with them, is to invite them all home to dinner. This has resulted in strained relationships between the board and the superintendent, inefficient and awkward public meetings, and, generally, a lack of cooperation and positive thinking on the problems involved. Dr. Passow feels it is absolutely essential for the intelligent functioning of the school board that some opportunity be provided for a type of informal seminar between the new superintendent and the board.

It is essential, of course, that the regular board meetings be open, and that no decisions be made behind closed doors. It is equally essential, experts in school administration are agreed, that the board be able to discuss in executive sessions such matters as "staff personnel problems, misconduct of pupils, and purchase of school sites." Until now, the board has been hamstrung by the extremely limited scope of the "appointment of teachers" exception. Justification for these recommended exceptions is that an open meeting could be needlessly harmful to employees and pupils, embarrassing to the board, and costly to the district.

No professional educator would disagree with the basic tenor of the above statements. The problem is finding language that would provide for the necessary exceptions to the open-meeting rule, and also provide necessary safeguards against the board actually making decisions in secrecy. One big safeguard which should be kept in mind is that the board we are talking about will be an elected one, and the members would be answerable at the polls if they tried to take advantage of the executive sessions provision. Nevertheless, because this is such a sensitive area, it would seem wise, rather than to rest with too broad a provision, to try to spell out the exceptions to the rule as closely as possible. We could find no one best way of framing this amendment, but we felt that the following would represent a fair compromise of the interests involved.

I recommend that, on page 4 of the bill, the second sentence of subsection (f) be amended

(1) by striking out "committee meetings dealing with the appointment of teachers" and inserting: "executive sessions dealing with staff personnel problems, pupil misconduct, and the acquisition of real property; provided that all final decisions must be made, and the reasons therefore

given, at open meetings of the board. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prohibit the board from meeting informally with the superintendent to discuss problems relating to their duties."

OTHER AMENDMENTS

In this fourth section, I will deal briefly with a number of other amendments that we feel the Committee should consider:

1. To allow the voter to vote for both at-large and ward members, I recommend that on page 7, the last sentence of subscection (i) be amended-

(1) by striking out "for the board of education" and inserting "from his ward for such office and for as many duly nominated candidates for atlarge membership on the board of education as there are positions to be filled in such election."

It would seem that this sentence, unless amended, would force a voter to choose whether to vote for a member from his ward or for one member at-large. This sentence, apparently brought over from a District Delegate bill, should be amended to correspond with the basic pattern of the multi-member school board elections.

2. To avoid costly and needless re-registration of every voter every other year, I recommend that, on page 5, subsection (4) of Section 2 be amended as follows: On page 5, lines 11-20, subsection (4):

(4) Section 7 of Such Act (D.C. Code, sec. 1-1107) is amended

(A) by striking out in subsection (a) "he registers in the District during the year in which such election is held", and by inserting "he is duly registered in the District on the date of such election":

(B) by striking out in subsection (d) "from January 1" and inserting "during normal business hours";

(C) by striking out "presidential election" and inserting "even-numbered calendar";

(D) by adding in subsection (d) after the word "May" the words "in a presidential election year";

(E) by adding at the end thereof the following sentence: "In the event that a registered voter either fails to vote in two successive General elections, or for any reason ceases to be a qualified elector, the Board shall delete his name from the registry, without prejudice to his later right to re-register if then duly qualified."; and

(F) by striking out in subsection (e) "Municipal Court for the District of Columbia" and inserting "District of Columbia Court of General Sessions".

3. To make more meaningful the requirement for petition signatures for atlarge membership on the board, I suggest that, on page 6, subsection (2)(i) be amended

(1) by striking out, after the words "at large," the phase "signed by not less than two hundred and fifty” and inserting the phrase "signed by not less than five hundred".

This concludes my statement. I have tried to keep it business-like and to the point. If there is any background information we can supply in regard to any of these points, we would be happy to do so. Thank you very much for your consideration of these amendments.

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION BY DK. JOHN M. LUMLEY, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF FEDERAL RELATIONS

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

On behalf of the National Education Association, which represents over one million educators in the United States, may I commend you for introducing legislation to provide for popular election of the school board for the District of Columbia.

We believe that this is a step in the right direction, not only for improving education in the District, by having a school board more responsive to the people, but also in providing experience in the elective process as a means of self-government which the citizens of the District have been for so long

denied.

HR 12373, which the Committee is currently considering, has many good features. The board is to be non-partisan; terms will be for four years: candidates must be rigistered voters and legal residents of the District, or of the ward they seek to represent for at least one year; regular monthly meetings are required; the board may appoint a secretary-these are all sound ideas.

We respectfully submit some additional provisions we believe should be incorporated into the law. Clarification of certain issues and relationships of the board, we believe, should be made in the initial legislation so that the candidates and the electorate can be aware of the role of the school board at the time of the election.

1. We suggest that the provision that candidates receive a majority of votes cast (with provision for a run-off election in the event there is no majority) is suitable for electing candidates in those situations where there are partisan elections. In a non-partisan situation, however, we believe this machinery is not necessary. We hope the committee will consider providing that the candidates with a plurality of votes are declared the winners. Run-off elections are expensive and we believe unnecessary. We believe the majority requirement is not suitable especially for election of the three at-large members. We suggest that the at-large members be chosen on the basis of which three candidates receive the highest, second highest and third highest numbers of votes. We believe this will eliminate the possibility that the three at-large members would tend to run as members of a certain special-interest group ticket. The liklihood of broader representation on the board would be enhanced, we believe, by designating the top three at-large candidates, at least in the initial election, as the duly elected members.

2. This leads to another point which is the determination by lot of the terms to be served by each duly elected member following the initial election. We believe that the ward representatives' terms should be selected by one drawing and the at-large members by a separate drawing. Otherwise it is possible that all three at-large members might draw the same number, thus being assigned the same length of term. If this should happen, all at-large members' terms would expire at the same time every four years. We believe continuity could better be achieved by a separate drawing for the at-large member terms, thus insuring some overlapping of terms.

3. We note that meetings of the board are to be open to the public except when dealing with appointment of teachers. We suggest that the word "teachers" be changed to "personnel". We also believe that in cases involving individual pupils or employees the individual pupil or employee concerned should have the privilege of requesting an executive session if he so chooses. We also suggest that in the interest of economy, that the board be allowed to go into executive session when discussing possible school sites. Public discussion of such matters tends to drastically increase the acquisition cost by inflating property values.

We believe these suggestions will improve the basic bill which we understand amends only that section of the District of Columbia Code which concerns the method of selecting members of the board. We strongly urge, however, that the bill go further, or the result will be an elected board with responsibility in the eyes of the voters-but with no actual power to design and to operate a school program responsive to the wishes of the citizens it serves.

We are realists. While we believe, ideally, that local school boards should have fiscal independence, we do not believe this will be granted to the District of Columbia school board at this time. Hopefully, when true home rule for the District is achieved, a fiscally-independent elected school board, with taxing and bonding powers, will be provided. In the meantime, we urge that a new section be added to HR 12373 to provide limited fiscal responsibility to the District school board.

We suggest that, within the total limit of funds as authorized by the Congress to the District of Columbia school system (after the District government. the Bureau of the Budget and the Appropriations Committees have made their adjustments to the School Board's request) that the School Board be authorized to determine the line item adjustments within the over-all authorization as passed by Congress. In other words, if the school board requests $100 million, but Congress authorizes only $95 million, then the Board should be able to determine what to use the $95 million for. They shou'd determine where the line items should be adjusted. Such a provision would place the responsibility for operating the District schools on the Board. It would relieve the pressure of special in

terests on the Congress-and on the District government. It would give the citizens a focal point to which to direct their demands. It would make being a member of the school board a meaningful public service-rather than merely an empty honor.

We believe that without at least this degree of fiscal control the elected school board will serve only as a further frustration to the citizens of the District. They will have the exercise of conducting an election, will expect the School Board to be responsive to the public will-but the Board will have no real power to change the status quo.

NEA's support of an elected school board for the District of Columbia in no way lessens the Association's committment, by unanimous action of the NEA Representative Assembly, to genuine Home Rule for the District of Columbia. It is ironic that the nearly 1 million residents of the Capital city of the world's greatest example of representative government and the most durable democracy in the history of mankind are denied the basic right of franchise which is the birthright of every American.

Thank you for the opportunity to express these views.

(Attached herewith is a summary of the results of a survey of school boards in school systems of 100,000 enrollment and over.)

RESULTS OF A PRELIMINARY TABULATION OF A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY OF SCHOOL BOARDS IN LARGE SCHOOL SYSTEMS (100,000 ENROLLMENT AND OVER) CONDUCTED BY THE NEA, EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, SPRING 1967

Of the 24 largest school systems enrolling 100,000 pupils or more, all but one have an odd number of school board members. The most frequent numbers are seven (11 systems) and nine (six systems). Board members are elected in 17 of the 24 systems. The election is nonpartisan in 14 systems. With one exception, the election take place at a general election. The length of term of both elected and appointed members is most frequently four years (12 systems). The terms are most frequently staggered (21 systems). With one exception, members may serve an unlimited number of consecutive terms.

The boards most frequently hold from 20 to 29 regular meetings a year (13 systems) and from one to nine special meetings (14 systems). In all of the 24 systems the regular meetings are open. Twenty of the 24 boards also hold executive sessions.

In 17 of the systems the board members represent the system at large; in five systems some members are at large and some are specifically representing geographic areas; in two systems, all members represent specific geographic areas.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA EDUCATION ASSOCIATION,
Washington, D.C., August 24, 1967.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COMMITTEE,
House of Representatives.

Washington, D.C.

GENTLEMEN: The District of Columbia Education Association supports HR 12373 which amends the D. C. election law to provide for the election of the board of education by the qualified voters of the District of Columbia. We believe that it is a step in the right direction to give the electorate of Washington, D. C.. a voice in the management of their local affairs.

The principle of self-government is basic to our American way of life and residents of this city must no longer be denied the right to make political decisions governing their daily lives. They should be able to participate in the management of their local government, especially as it relates to the education of their children and the adults within this community. D. C. citizens would accept responsibility for the effective operation of their schools and their local government. While the Congress of the United States must maintain ultimate authority over the District of Columbia because it is the seat of the government of our nation, the conduct of day-by-day municipal operations should be performed by officials responsible to the people who elect them.

HR 12373 provides for the election of the board of education, but does not effect its existing powers related to school fiscal affairs or establishment of educational policies and program. The bill deals solely with the election and composition of the school board.