On Monday, April 20, members of the Fayetteville-Manlius Board of Education voted to reject two of the four OCM BOCES Board of Education candidates for the upcoming election, including Jamesville-DeWitt/Fayetteville-Manlius representative Ann Wright and East Syracuse Minoa representative Wayne Brownson.

F-M Board of Education President Marissa Mims said she asked her board to reject these two candidates, although they are running unopposed, as a symbolic gesture to show that the F-M district believes the OCM BOCES board is in violation of a longtime gentleman’s agreement.

“The BOCES board has this gentleman’s agreement in place and I want to know whether or not they are planning on following it,” Mims said. “You either follow it, or you don’t.”

A 2008 memo from former OCM BOCES Superintendent Jessica Cohen to the component district board of education presidents describes the gentleman’s agreement as the “informal process that has been used in this BOCES to ensure equitable representation on the BOCES Boards from a diversity of districts in the BOCES.”

According to the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Eagle Bulletin, the gentleman’s agreement was set up when Onondaga BOCES merged with Cortland-Madison BOCES in 1985, bringing the number of component districts OCM BOCES serves to 23. The agreement guarantees a seat on the BOCES board of education to the five largest districts in terms of enrollment, and the remaining six seats are split up regionally by the remaining component districts.

At this time the agreement was made 30 years ago, the top five districts in terms of enrollment were Baldwinsville, ESM, Liverpool, North Syracuse and West Genesee.

Currently, J-D and F-M share a seat on the BOCES board and ESM has its own seat. According to Mims, since this agreement was made, F-M has grown to be in the top five districts in terms of enrollment and J-D and ESM should share a seat because they are not in the top five.

Mims said she has an interest in running and serving as an OCM BOCES board member, but it not able to because J-D plans to appoint Wright until her retirement and BOCES has not given F-M its own seat despite being in the top five districts based on enrollment numbers.

“I’m advocating for the district [F-M],” Mims said. “It’s a powerful thing to have a voice at the [OCM BOCES] table … You have a voice in the policies and practices.”

This issue was brought up previously by Mims during the 2012 OCM BOCES elections, and three meetings were then held to discuss the gentleman’s agreement by the 23 component districts and representatives from the OCM BOCES board.

There were several general consensus conclusions met, according to the meeting minutes obtained by the Eagle Bulletin, which included a view to follow the gentleman’s agreement rather than having at-large elections, affirming the agreement that the five largest districts should have single board seats and checking enrollment of the component districts every nine years.

When asked for enrollment numbers of the 23 component districts, an administrative worker from OCM BOCES said they stopped tracking enrollment in 2012.

ESM BOCES representative Brownson did not respond to calls for comment.

Ann Wright, who has been the J-D/F-M representative for the OCM BOCES Board of Education for the past 30 years, as well as board president for the past 21 years, refused to comment. She said this matter should be discussed with OCM BOCES District Superintendent J. Francis Manning.

Manning was willing to comment by saying Mims could run at-large if she wanted to, but said he is not able to speak for the board when it comes to its position on following the gentleman’s agreement.

“F-M has had the opportunity to nominate someone to run for the board,” Manning said. ‘They have elected not to and I don’t know why.”

Mims said she has not considered running at-large because it would be in violation of the gentleman’s agreement and could possibly displace equal representation of smaller school districts on the OCM BOCES board.

The F-M board did vote on April 20 to endorse William Pedrick, Cortland City School District/Homer representative, and Maryam Wasmund, representative of Fabius-Pompey/LaFayette/Tully school districts, for the upcoming OCM BOCES board election.

Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for the Eagle Bulletin. She can be reached at [email protected].