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The Philadelphia Board of Education briefly recessed a public hearing Thursday when protesters objected to heightened security, including extra school safety officers, city police, and big written warnings ordering people not to stand in the aisles.
When former teacher Lisa Haver and others defiantly stood in the center aisle holding signs, city police surrounded Haver and other members of the public, insisting they vacate the aisle. Board President Reginald Streater then called a recess and the seven attending board members left the room at 4:31 p.m., about a half hour after the meeting started.
Many of the 42 speakers registered Thursday evening railed against the board members for blocking free speech at a meeting dedicated to public testimony.
This is the second board meeting in two months that board members have left the room to deal with protesters. In October, supporters of suspended Northeast High School teacher Keziah Ridgeway forced the members to leave the room during its regular monthly meeting, at which they take official actions, and continue their meeting elsewhere in the building. Their votes were livestreamed, but people were not allowed in the room where they took the votes.
Thursday’s interruption happened after two students from Palumbo High School tearfully excoriated the board for a vote in November that paved the way for the controversial Philadelphia 76ers arena in Center City, and for “censoring” and disciplining teachers, including Ridgeway, who had expressed pro-Palestinian views.
“I’m ashamed of this board,” Aster Chau, a student at Academy at Palumbo, said at Thursday’s meeting. “Why are you stripping your students of their teachers?”
“Obviously you don’t care what we think,” said student Joey Zhou, also from Palumbo.
The hostile atmosphere continued when another speaker, Kristin Luebbert, pointed out that if the board was concerned about fire safety — the reason Streater had given to keep the aisles clear — it had blocked access to one of the two entrances to the room to the public. She also blasted the board, among other things, for enabling systemic racism.
Haver, a co-founder of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools advocacy group who speaks at every board meeting, continued the verbal onslaught. “The Gestapo tactics of this board are a disgrace and they have to end,” she said.
At that point, as a clamor broke out, Streater called the recess and the members left the room. They came back about 20 minutes later, and Streater gave a short statement saying he had determined that “the aisle is not a safe space for people to congregate during an action meeting.”
But Haver and Luebbert didn’t move. Streater repeated: “There are designated places for people who carry signs.”
He repeated his admonition several times. But Haver stood pat, holding her handwritten poster saying “We will always cause good trouble for our students,” a reference to the famous saying of the late John Lewis.
Two city police officers then joined the school safety officers already in the room and several stayed in or near the meeting room as the meeting progressed.
Opponents of the 76ers arena plan felt that the board could have stopped or at least delayed the plan if they wanted to.
Speakers also reiterated pleas to return librarians to schools, getting advocates from the Main Line area and New Jersey to join that campaign.
“You used to be on the board of ACLU, and here you are intentionally trying to quell protest,” teacher Charlie McGeehan told Streater. “This board is one of the most exasperating I’ve ever experienced.”
Haver remained standing in the aisle for the rest of the meeting, which is one of two public hearings a year the board is required to hold.
Dale Mezzacappa is a senior writer for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, where she covers K-12 schools and early childhood education in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.
