Marblehead school board member creates possible conflict of interest

MARBLEHEAD – Eight-year School Committee member Jonathan Lederman surprised his colleagues twice last week – and one surprise has them concerned about a possible conflict of interest.Lederman has volunteered to serve on the Marblehead Community Charter Public School’s Expansion Task Force, a special committee that will determine if the MCCPS should lease additional space – and he is sending a child to the MCCPS next year.The decision makes him the first Marblehead elected school official to volunteer on a charter school committee.Charter schools were established by the Education Reform Act of 1993 as experimental schools that other schools can learn from. They are funded by per-pupil deductions from a sending community’s state aid.”I believe in choice and competition,” Lederman said Sunday, comparing schools to restaurants which must improve their offerings when they compete and comparing pre-1993 public schools to “a monopoly, Soviet-style.”He called the charter school “very child-focused,” and noted that charter schools attract “committed teachers who work for lower pay because they have more opportunity to innovate.””My role on the School Committee is a policy and budgetary role,” he added. “The charter school task force is not a leadership group.”School Committee Chairman Amy Drinker said that Lederman has entered “new territory.””Our charge as School Committee members is to focus on the education programs in our school district,” she said. “The charter school is outside the district.””As a town official I’m extremely concerned that if the charter school expands it could affect the school budget and the town budget. There’s no law being broken. But is there a conflict of interest? It could be a conflict of interest.”In a second surprise Thursday evening, Lederman presented his colleagues with a 1 1/2-page memo, outlining a way to fund the teaching of Spanish in Grades 1-4 next year by two part-time teachers at a cost of $90,000.Spanish is currently taught in Grades 5-12. Superintendent of Schools Paul Dulac has said he plans to add Spanish to Grade 4 and below, starting in Fiscal Year 2011.Lederman said Sunday night that adding Spanish to the lower grades next year would make the district schools more competitive with the charter school, where Spanish is taught in Grade 4 and possibly in lower grades, if the school should expand.However, Lederman may have pushed some buttons when he proposed raising the $90,000 by reducing the $98,823 athletic director position from full-time to part-time. He said that would save $76,323 for Fiscal Year 2010.He pointed out that Marblehead used a part-time athletic director until two years ago, when the full-time job was created by outgoing Interim Superintendent Philip Devaux.”I don’t think it’s reasonable for us to spend almost $100,000 on a job other communities handle part-time when we’re not offering foreign language in Grades 1-4.” Lederman said.The School Committee voted 4-1 to table the proposal. Lederman, who voted against tabling, was not allowed to discuss his idea but Dulac promised to put it on Thursday’s agenda. Lederman accused his colleagues of “looking for reasons not to do it.”Drinker said the committee process is to include individual proposals in the packets each member receives before a meeting. Once it is in the packet it cannot be discussed until it comes up at a meeting.”This is a personnel issue,” she said. “It hasn’t been discussed with the superintendent. We don’t do business that way.”