A few thoughts on today’s charter decisions

• Never assume that you know what a public body’s vote is going to be before they actually vote.
• An authorizing Board, like this one, has an actual role in authorizing, and thus “if it’s good enough for the Commissioner, it’s good enough for me” is quite literally not doing the job.
• The level of impotent fury of those who are accustomed to these passing without an issue was telling, as was the response being a patronizing “let me explain how this works.” But this isn’t that Board anymore. 
• I know “when we fight, we win” is a thing to say, but—with all admiration and respect for Lynn—not all who fight win. Ask Worcester last year. Ask Pioneer Valley communities this year. We can celebrate victory without this implicit conclusion that some didn’t fight at all or enough.
• Similarly, it is hard not to chalk the vote of student member Ioannis Asikis against KIPP Lynn to Lynn Public Schools students literally pleading to be heard, which Chair Katherine Craven (wildly inappropriately) directed to Asikis, asking him to say a few words completely out of the blue. One cannot but wonder if students from the Pioneer Valley being able to be there might have flipped his deciding vote on the two area charters there. As noted by both Rep. Sabadosa and Sen.Comerford’s office in public testimony today, this is a geographic inequity, and today it may well have been a deciding factor. 
• One has to assume political powers that be decided against KIPP Lynn. There is no way Craven would vote ‘no’ otherwise. One wonders what this means. 
• The Secretary voted ‘no’ on every single one. One also wonders what that means.
• Hard not to conclude that this Board would have voted against the OSV charter expansion in Worcester. My memory will always be a little nauseated on that, as I had norovirus at the time, but it is a little more so today.