School board members in Manhattan with ties to the conservative parent group Moms for Liberty were not re-elected to their local education council, according to results announced Monday.
Those knocked off the panel included Community Education Council 2 member Maud Maron, who brought a federal lawsuit against the New York City Education Department to regain her seat after a former schools chancellor removed her for misconduct. Maron stirred controversy last year for sponsoring a resolution condemned by LGBTQ+ advocates as anti-transgender student athletes.
In a statement to the Daily News, Marone said many parents have started voting — not just during the election, but with their feet — and leaving a school district that, as she sees it, is lowering academic standards.
“More social justice activism in lieu of an academic focus will accelerate that trend,” said Maron, who was one of two CEC 2 members to speak at a Moms for Liberty forum in Jan. 2024. Democratic politicians decried the event, and neither member secured enough votes to return to the education council.
Nearly 1,400 parents applied this cycle — a 24% increase — for seats on Community and Citywide Education Councils, which serve as New York City’s school boards in a public school system controlled by the mayor, according to Education Department data. There are 32 geographic councils and four citywide panels, which focus on certain students: English language learners, children with disabilities and high schoolers.
“Our schools continue to thrive because of committed parent leadership,” Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement. “The [Community and Citywide Education Councils] elections show just how deeply we value parent voices to shape our schools and build a stronger, more inclusive system for all our students. We are committed to giving our elected parent leaders the support and tools they need to lead effectively.”
But greater interest in serving on the councils didn’t translate into any improvement in voter turnout, which remained abysmally low. This year, fewer than 18,200 parents cast ballots in a school system of close to 1 million children — a 4% decrease in participation since the last election cycle in 2023, the data showed.
While the panels are often limited in what they can do, they help shape the conversation around hot-button education debates, such as how schools should respond to Israel’s war in Gaza or transgender student athletes.
Last cycle, the local education advocacy group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, captured a significant foothold on the councils, launching a debate over whether the city was experiencing a backlash to progressive education policies. PLACE advocates for more Gifted & Talented programs and the use of a single exam for admissions to specialized high schools.
PLACE-endorsed candidates will make up 31% of elected seats, down several percentage points from the last election, according to the group’s tallies. This election, PLACE declined to endorse Maron, a co-founder of the organization, who is separately running for Manhattan district attorney as a Republican.
“It’s an honor to have received the most votes for an individual candidate in the entire city,” Craig Slutzkin, the current president of Community Education Council 2, said in a PLACE press release Monday. “I believe this a reflection of parents’ desire for rigorous, quality education for all kids throughout the city, something I have been fighting for over the past two years.”
CEC 2 — which oversees a sprawling district from Lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side, while omitting some neighborhoods such as the East Village — became the site of sustained protests since The News broke the story last spring of plans to urge the chancellor to revisit the city’s inclusive policy on transgender girls’ participation in school sports.
The ensuing turmoil sparked organized efforts to oust the resolution’s backers. CEC 2 saw more than double the number of applicants than in 2023, according to Education Department data.
Erin Khar, a parent leader on the P.S. 41 Greenwich Village School PTA, said she was encouraged to run by other education advocates, and made her final decision to apply after President Trump’s inauguration and the onslaught of new federal policies that came with his re-election.
“I realized that while I don’t have control of things over a federal level, I do have influence and control over what happens in New York City,” said Khar, who hopes to help rescind the transgender sports resolution.
“I absolutely believe we’ll be able to do it with the new makeup of the council with a message to the trans kids … The message to them is we will protect them — that the protections that already exist within the DOE will be upheld, and we’re going to ensure that.”
Council members serve two-year terms beginning on July 1.
