Reflections on School Board Members of Yesteryear

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Albany about a decade ago, the usual buzz about town of games, birthday parties and shopping had an additional sound to it: political speeches booming from a microphone.

More than 100 people had gathered on the playground: parents, teachers, high school students, school clerical workers and interested townspeople. They were listening to speeches about a cause they could not deny was important to them: their schools.

Trouble was brewing at the . Teachers had voted to strike because a contract offered by the district left Albany teachers underpaid relative to other Bay Area schools. 

The county Office of Education was threatening to take over the district’s finances after it deemed the administration unable to balance revenues and expenses.

Meanwhile, in the midst of it all, students faced losing out on school days if a strike occurred.

The main speaker behind the microphone at Cornell School that day was , a parent of a kindergartener and a toddler, and an experienced community organizer.  She had heard the teachers at her son’s school describe their frustrations and began attending their meetings to try to help them resolve the impasse without a strike. 

Her main idea? Rally the community to the cause.

She inspired other parents to get involved – not only in the ways Albany parents had always been involved helping in classrooms and at the PTA – but also at the district level.

Parents started attending school district Board of Education meeting in droves, making suggestions to then Superintendent Gary Mills about how to sort out the finances.

And parents supported teachers in their contract negotiations.

Finally things quieted. A settlement was reached and a strike averted. The board, under an administrator appointed by the county Office of Education, took action to balance its finances and replace Mills, and students continued to learn.

But something had changed in Albany.

“When teachers finally got a settlement from the district, there was an awareness that the issues they were talking about most, and most upset about, were things that couldn’t be settled with a contract. It was about respect, not about money. It was about feeling heard and feeling a partner in the process of building the school district,” Walden recalled in an interview with Albany Patch. “So it was clear we could get a contract settlement but wouldn’t feel we had won until we changed how the school board related with teachers,” she said. 

Walden and a few others ran for board of education seats.

That spring - punctuated by its political rally at Cornell School and the filled-to-capacity board of education meetings - may have been a turning point in Albany Unified School District politics. It ushered in a level of community involvement that has shaped the district ever since, allowing this small town of average means to pass three parcel taxes and make collective decisions about everything from whether to allow cell towers on schools to choosing new superintendents to sorting out issues of school equity and curriculum. 

Many would say Miriam Walden was the catalyst.

In December, Walden retired from the board after eight years. David Glasser, a four-year board member who also was instrumental in preserving community involvement in education decisions, has also retired.

Glasser in his term became the guardian and champion of parents and community rights in decision making. He was the board member who insisted on community input on several key decisions – from electing  to decisions about reading curriculum and schedules in the early elementary grades.  

Albany Patch decided it is a fitting moment to reflect on the legacy left by these board members and the lessons they offer to the Albany school community going forward. Patch interviewed Walden and Glasser, and those interviews will follow this post.

We also interviewed key players in the school community, such as Albany Teachers Association president David DeHart, a veteran high school history teacher of nearly three decades.

“The difference is like night and day,” he said, about the relationship between teachers and the district before and after Walden came in. 

“In the 1980s and 1990s, the administration was at odds with the teachers,” he said.  

“We were ready to go out on strike and Miriam came out of the woodwork,” DeHart said. “She was instrumental in helping parents really understand the issues.”

“She got that teachers are the program,” De Hart said.

The contracts negotiated over the last decade reflect that, with teachers sharing in revenue gains – as well as losses. There have been no increases to the salary schedule over the past several years during the recession and California budget crisis. 

Superintendent Stephenson said both Walden and Glasser brought indispensable skills.

“David brought an understanding of public policy, particularly as it pertains to matters of finance,” which is the top responsibility of the board, she said. “He also was a champion and advocate for special education rights.”

Steeped in public policy from a career in public finance (currently he's finance director of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District), Glasser would often remind the board of what it could and could not do as an elected board under state and federal law. 

“He understood our role is to set policy,” said Stephenson.

Of Walden, “She brought a very broad intellectual and activist approach to public school governance,” the superintendent said. (It should be noted that Walden was the prime advocate for appointing Stephenson to her position as head of the Albany Unified School District.)

“She brought a high level of expertise in grassroots community activism that enabled us to pass three parcel taxes – ,” Stephenson continued. 

Without those parcel taxes, particularly the two passed in June of 2009, the school district “would be experiencing deep program cuts, possible furloughs (or days when school was closed) and possibly more teacher layoffs.”

Not everybody has agreed with Walden’s style of organizing or with her priorities, and some have described her as a polarizing force.

Marsha Skinner, who was on the Board of Education during the tumultuous times early in the last decade when teachers voted to strike and Walden organized support for the teachers’ issues, said that Walden’s style was contentious.

“It wasn’t so much that we disagreed on how money should be spent, it was that I didn’t like her manner. I didn’t like the way I saw her treat people,” Skinner said of Walden’s method of getting things done.

“She gives effective representation for her particular point of view,” without really being open to others’ views, Skinner added.

But her peers lavish praise.

“Miriam was an exceptionally dedicated and hardworking board member, with an exemplary understanding of the grassroots political process. I will always be in awe of her ability to run not one but two successful parcel tax campaigns (with no extra pay) while teaching at an inner-city high school,” said , president of the school board, who worked with both Walden and Glasser over the past four years.

“David brought an expertise in public finance,” Low said, which since “the board functions as a whole, it is important that we all have different strengths. In addition, he reminded us often of the needs of students with special needs.”

“He also brought a sense of humor, which in my opinion, is a major asset.”

Click here for a Question & Answer session with Miriam Walden. Stay tuned for another session featuring David Glasser.

Everybody makes mistakes ... ! If there's something in this article you think should be corrected, or if something else is amiss, call editor Emilie Raguso at 510-459-8325 or email her at emilier@patch.com.