School board members who are serving their egos, not their communities have to go

I don’t know what kind of receptions two embattled school officials thought they were going to get in their communities this week, but I know they got the ones they deserved.

On Thursday, Bill Formica, a Souderton Area school board member, was met by protesters calling for his resignation for the disgusting comments he made on social media about Vice President Kamala Harris.

At the school board meeting, Formica offered a slightly updated version of the same weak apology he made previously: His words were “impulsive” (read: sexist) and “unprofessional” (read: misogynistic). But, he added, they were being “twisted by my opposition.”

Formica said he was no longer using social media, calling it “a source of division and negativity.”

He was, he insisted, committed to “addressing the needs of our community” — and based on the collective shrug his fellow board members have given his words, they seem cool with that.

Way to role model!

About an hour away in Camden, a school board meeting two days earlier descended into chaos as residents demanded the resignation of School Advisory Board President Wasim Muhammad.

In June, the district settled a $2 million civil lawsuit over allegations of an inappropriate relationship between Muhammad and a former student who accused him of sexually abusing her when he was her social studies teacher in 1994. While the jury rejected sexual assault and battery allegations against the Muslim minister, they found that he “recklessly or intentionally committed extreme and outrageous conduct.”

His attorney, Troy Archie, told reporters his client has no plans to resign.

Instead, the lawyer said, Muhammad “wishes to serve the community.”

Well, have a seat gentlemen, it’s time for a quick lesson on what serving your communities actually looks like.

Serving your communities means, above all, respecting all of the people in them. Serving your communities means ensuring nothing gets in the way of school business. Serving your communities means stepping down when your presence becomes a distraction from the work that needs to be done to educate children.

You’ve both failed miserably.

The added irony here is that many schools and school boards have become an intense battleground over values and what parents (and activists) want children to be exposed to. Books that talk about slavery or racism, otherwise known as American history? Ban them! Performers in drag reading stories to school children? The horror!

And yet here we have school leaders who possess traits that in any other environment would disqualify them from the job — Formica, for making outrageous comments about Harris, and Muhammad for whistling past a sexual assault lawsuit that cost one of the poorest school districts in the state $800,000 in legal fees, of which Muhammad paid not one cent.

Without question, what Muhammad is accused of is far more serious than Formica’s offense. But both men stand as avatars of how deep the wounds can run when public trust is violated. And it is obscene for either to insist they can be of service to communities that they not only betrayed, but whose twisted notion of public service goes against their very values.

Those values, by the way, are right there in black and white on each of the school district’s respective websites. In Camden, the language is that the school will provide learning environments “where all students are valued,” and in Souderton, “character” supposedly “counts.”

Good character, for those who missed the lesson most of us got in grade school, means being honest and honorable and diligent and decent. It means being responsible and accountable.

That’s not a call to service these men are responding to when they insist on staying on. That’s the roaring sound of their own unchecked egos.

And we’re familiar with that kind of destructive ego in Philadelphia. Remember the abrupt closure of Mathematics, Civics and Sciences Charter School after the founder said no one could educate her students the way she could? More than 900 students were left scrambling to find a new school.

Thursday’s chaotic meeting in Souderton came after another one on Aug. 14, which was canceled within 15 minutes when order could not be maintained because of Formica’s comments.

Tuesday’s meeting in Camden was the second time since Muhammad resumed his board seat that the board was unable to conduct business.

And yet, both men sat unapologetically, saved by bylaws that so far mean only they can decide to step down. In Camden, a board member can be removed for only three reasons: three consecutive absences, a criminal conviction, or lack of district residency. Short of a “high crime,” Souderton protesters were told a board could only exclude a member for missing two successive meetings without an excuse.

More reason to applaud Camden Pastor Ojii Baba Mahdi, who said that the community is “resolute that there will be no business as usual” until “we value our children as they should be valued.”

So stay loud — keep up the pressure and make it absolutely clear that these men, and their lack of values, are not welcome in your schools.