Coalition threatens to try for recall of Kent School Board members Berrios, Davies

Though the Kent Education Association strike officially came to an end this past week, one parents’ group that was formed to support teachers plans to carry on with its goal of recalling two members of the Kent School Board.

The Kent Parents Coalition, founded in August by Charles Allen, will move ahead with recall petitions aimed at getting Board President Jim Berrios and Vice President Chris Davies removed from the board.

“We want a fresh board,” Allen said following the KEA vote to ratify the new contract. “We want new blood, new ideas, new people on that board.”

As of late last week, no recall petition had been filed with King County Elections.

Allen said the recall is partially linked to what he saw as a board that was not being responsive to its community, including the canceling of a Sept. 9 board meeting and the board’s reasons for it.

According to the district and Berrios, the Sept. 9 meeting was deferred until Sept. 23 because there were no action items or typical beginning-of-school reports on the agenda so the meeting was canceled.

But Allen and others were planning to attend the meeting to give the board a piece of their mind during the public comment section and view the meeting’s cancellation as proof that the board does not want to hear from the community.

“At a time of crisis, the leadership should step up and be available,” Allen said in an interview before the strike ended. “This is a crisis.”

Allen said he felt the elected officials of the board were not doing their job in acting as a liaison between the administration and the community.

“There is no voice from the school board to the administration saying ‘these activities are unacceptable,'” he said.

In a posting on the new Kent Parents Coalition Web site (www.kentparentscoalition.org), Allen wrote that two more years of Berrios’ and Davies’ leadership is “two too many.”

He also claimed both men were “out of touch” with the community and its wants, as evidenced by what he saw as their unwillingness to negotiate a “child centric” contract during the strike.

Berrios on Friday said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that he was non-responsive during the strike and pointed to several times during the strike in which he invited in picketers who gathered outside his home and business and talked to them for several hours at a time.

“I just don’t get the mentality that I avoided people,” Berrios said, adding that he has also contacted Allen and not heard back.

He also said that when he hears some of the rumors about himself it surprises him.

“You want to talk to me, call me,” he said. “People should talk to people who know and know Chris.”

Berrios also said that now is the time for the community to come together and address some of the funding inadequacies that were highlighted during the strike.

“If they really think I’m the enemy, they’re confused,” Berrios said, adding that if people want to seek a recall it is their right. “Up until that day I will continue to serve my duties as board president and won’t allow myself to get emotionally upset about what people are saying.”

Davies said he too was surprised by the accusations.

“This board has spent a lot of time talking to the public,” he said. “I strongly disagree there’s a disconnect.”

Davies said that the negotiations and strike were “tenuous and stressful” and that he felt the board must have a “measured” approach, which might at times have seemed like a disconnect.

“That’s not the case,” he said. “We were involved every day.”

Davies also said he responded to hundreds of e-mails each day during the strike and said that he thinks that people who followed the board for many months instead the past few weeks would attest to that.

Allen founded the KPC during the teacher strike because he felt the district was not negotiating in good faith with the union.

“The reason I got involved was because I didn’t understand why the administration was behaving like it was,” he said, adding that as he got more involved “I became more and more for the teachers.”

Allen said he saw at rallies that there were groups of parents, but wanted to find a way to bring them together under a single umbrella. After founding the group, which was heavily promoted during the strike on the KEA’s blog (which, according to the blog, was receiving thousands of hits per day), Allen said more than 100 people added the group’s Facebook profile and about 100 people signed up within three days.

Allen said in the first few days he also received more than 50 e-mails from parents looking to get involved.

“I had no idea what I was stepping into,” he said.

Allen’s vision for the Kent Parents Coalition is to make it a permanent force in the school district. He said he plans to have it be a “watchdog organization” to keep parents informed about the school board and the administration.

Allen said he wants to focus on creating a culture in the district that is “solution-oriented” and best serves students, not the bottom line.

He added the coalition is evidence that district residents can join forces for a common need.

“What it shows is that really in a time of crisis, really in a time of need, a community can still come together,” he said.

For more information on the Kent Parents Coalition visit http://www.kentparentscoalition.org/