- Allentown school board tabled a discussion of complaints made against Phoebe Harris
- Board policy requires that complainants receive a response in 15 days
- The vote was unanimous
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The Allentown school board voted unanimously to table a discussion of complaints filed against Board Director Phoebe Harris made at the previous committee meeting.
The board voted to delay discussion of the item even after its solicitor, Jeffrey Sultanik, told it that would make it in violation of its own policies of responding to complaints within 15 days. The board only had the power to remove Harris from the chair of committees, not to remove her from the board.
Board Director Lisa Conover made a motion to table the agenda item, saying she did not want to openly discuss the complaints against Harris in public. Harris had started to make a presentation that appeared to include videos.
"We didn't know that this openly was going to look like this," Conover said. "I don't want to go down this road."
Several members of the community spoke in favor of Harris, emphasizing her commitment to ASD students.
Several members of Promise Neighbors, an anti-violence nonprofit organization, appeared at a meeting earlier this month to demand Harris be removed from the board. Harris and Promise Neighborhood staff had a dispute during an ASD community safety forum on Oct. 10.
A Promise Neighborhood staffer said Harris used offensive language, arguing she had an “ongoing pattern of breaking protocol, disregarding decorum and rules, using her position to provide favors to her friends and behaving in ways unbecoming of a school board member.”
"We're in violation of our own policy if we do not respond."The Allentown School Board Solicitor Jeffrey Sultanik
Harris said she confronted a Promise Neighborhoods employee at the forum for allegedly calling an Allentown resident a racial slur at a City Council meeting earlier this year.
"I couldn't believe that person was there after what he said to a black man at a city council meeting," Harris said in an interview last week.
Sultanik told board members that under Policy 906, the board has to give a response within 15 days and the district told the community members the board would respond in that timeframe.
"We're in violation of our own policy if we do not respond," he said.
It's unclear if communicating a tabling of the discussion, which was expected to include whether Harris should stay in her committee roles, would actually constitute a response. Promise Neighborhood Operations Director Jeani Garcia did not respond to a request for comment Thursday night. Harris said she believed the tabling was the response required under the policy.
"I was surprised, but very grateful because it shows that the board is committed that our children get the best and not caught up in the weeds of personal vendettas," she said after the meeting concluded.
Board Director Patrick Palmer said he was concerned with what would happen the next time a complaint was made.
"There are people who live in Allentown that want to be able to do something when they feel slighted by any of us. It can happen to me and I would like there to be a process if it did happen to me. I don't want it to be 'I'll figure it out when I get there' from a government body."
