Moving right along: Board of Ed membership

Periodically, I am asked about the length of terms of the current Board of Ed members, particularly given that we have a largely Baker-appointed Board and an ostensibly more education-friendly Governor now. While the state does have this chart, it's not fully updated, has weirdly set everything to June expiration dates (which isn't in state law), and has more than one ending date just plain wrong.

I did the first version of this post in 2017, with an update in January of last year.

As a reminder, it is MGL Ch. 15, sec. 1E that creates and describes the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The main thing to keep in mind for this post, aside from the student member and the co-terminus member, is this piece: 

Each of the remaining 8 members shall be appointed for a term of 5 years...No person shall be appointed to serve more than two full terms...Prior service on said board for a term of less than three years, resulting from an initial appointment or an appointment for the remainder of an unexpired term, shall not be counted as a full term. 

 Starting at the top: 

• Chair Katherine Craven holds the "representative of business or industry" seat on the Board. She was appointed to the Board of August 2014 by then-Governor Patrick, who named her as chair (the position of chair is also a Gubernatorial selection) by then-Governor Baker when Paul Sagan resigned from the Board in 2019. She was re-appointed to her second term by Governor Baker.
  As such, her two terms of five years expires next month (or, if you believe the state's chart, it was up last month).
  This is a seat that the Governor could fill next week/now.
  
  
• Vice Chair Matt Hills was appointed by then-Governor Baker in March 2019 to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Paul Sagan. As Sagan was appointed in 2015, there was then one year left in that term. Hills then was re-appointed--one assumes, as no one ever announced these things!--to a new five year term. That term, beginning in 2020, should then run through March 2025, at which point he could--see the final sentence in the above--be reappointed.
  I thus have no idea why the state's chart says that his term runs through 2027, as there's no way that those numbers work. 
  
  
• Dr. Ericka Fisher, of course, was Governor Healey's first Board appointment to the seat that runs co-terminus with the Governor; that's why the state's chart has no end date for her service, as it is essentially depends on if Healey wins re-election and serves eight years.
  
  
• Farzana Mohamed was appointed by then-Governor Baker in July 2022; her first term runs through July 2027.
  
  
• Michael Moriarty was appointed to the Board in September 2015; this, thus is his second term, which will end in September 2025.
  
  
• Dálida Rocha, who was appointed this January as the second of Governor Healey's appointments, has the labor seat. Her term thus runs through January 2029, which is also not what the state's chart says.
  
  
• Paymon Rouhanifard was appointed in September 2019. His first term thus ends in September of this year. 
  However, the same section of the law says the following: 
  

  If a member is absent from any four regularly scheduled monthly meetings, exclusive of July and August, in any calendar year, his office as a member of said board shall be deemed vacant. The chairman of the board shall forthwith notify the governor that such vacancy exists.

  As we have not seen Rouhanifard (even remotely) in months, this seat by state law is deemed vacant. I do not know if the Chair has made the notification required, but this applies, and as such, this is a seat that the Governor could fill.
  

• Mary Ann Stewart, who fills the parent seat on the Board, was appointed by then-Governor Patrick in August 2014. The state's chart appears not to acknowledge what we have all assumed is a reappointment. As such, her second term ends next month. 
  
  This is a seat the Governor will be due to fill next week.
  

• Secretary Patrick Tutwiler, in his capacity as Secretary, serves as a voting member of the three education boards in Massachusetts (early ed; K-12; higher ed). As a cabinet officer, he serves at the pleasure of the Governor, and will hold the position so long as she wishes him to.
  

• Dr. Martin West was appointed September 2017; one assumes he thus has been reappointed, as that term ended September 2022. His second term thus will end September 2027. I have no idea why the state chart claims 2025. 
  

• The student member for the coming year--they serve single year terms, having been voted into the position by their peers on the State Student Advisory Council--is Yiannis Asikis, who will begin his service when the Board meets in the fall. 

I really, really don't like the squirreliness with numbers here. People were appointed when they were appointed. Save Fisher, Tutwiler, and the student member, unless they are filling the rest of someone else's term--as Vice Chair Hills is--they can serve two five year terms, which are five years, not magically all ending in June. And Hills' term only has a single additional year (he can serve, thus, eleven), not some magic other number. 

In any case, there are by state law three seats open for Governor Healey to appoint.