A broken board, district

A ‘Broken Board Culture’ 

(Inside Higher Ed)

The Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees has been roiled by conflict amid ongoing financial problems, according to a recent Alameda County civil grand jury report. 

By Sara Weissman 

     An Alameda County civil grand jury report lambasted the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees for maintaining poor shared governance practices, interfering in hiring decisions, holding secretive meetings, infighting, showing racial insensitivity and fostering an overall culture of incivility toward each other, administrators and staff. 

     The report, released Monday, said students were poorly served by a “broken board culture” that led to extensive administrative turnover and exacerbated long-standing financial troubles. The Bay Area district, which is part of the California Community College system, consists of the College of Alameda, Berkeley City College, Merritt College and Laney College. 

     The grand jury received eight formal complaints about trustees elected prior to 2020, the report said. 

     “Cohesion, civility, trust, and mutual respect are critical elements of an effective governing board,” the authors of the report wrote. “Tension, poor communication, lack of unified goals, and divisive individual behavior at Peralta have resulted in the board's inability to fulfill its mandate effectively. Interference in the traditional roles of the chancellor, secret meetings, and backroom dealing destroy staff morale and the board’s relationship with the administrative team. Without reform or change in board behavior, Peralta’s students, so in need of this essential institution, will continue to suffer.” 

. . . 

     The report concluded that board members stepped outside the bounds of their roles by encouraging staff who bypassed the chancellor to bring issues directly to them, and by interfering with hiring processes overseen by the chancellor on multiple occasions between 2018 and 2020. 

     Regina Stanback Stroud, the former chancellor, left her position in July 2020, less than a year after she was hired. Her resignation letter accused trustees of undermining her role; interfering with complaints against board members; intervening in labor negotiations; “exhibiting hostility and contempt” toward administrators, especially Black executive staff; and engaging in “collusion with the unions against the interest of the district.” 

     “These issues cast a poor light on the board as a whole and the district -- and place the district and its four colleges in continual fiscal jeopardy thereby undermining the ability of Peralta Community College District to successfully meet the needs of students and the community,” Stroud wrote in the letter. 

     Jennifer Shanoski, president of the Peralta Federation of Teachers, a local affiliate of the faculty union, denied that the board played any inappropriate role in labor negotiations. 

     “The notion that there’s some secret collusion is absolutely absurd,” she said. “We think that one of our roles within the district is to share our perspective on information with board members. I live within the boundaries of the Peralta trustee district. I’m a constituent and many of our members are constituents. There is nothing that says we can’t write to our board members just like you would write to your city council member or your governor or your state representative or any other elected official.” 

     The district has cycled through five chancellors in the last two and a half years and six chief financial officers in the past four and a half years, according to the report….