Two rival parent leaders were ousted from their respective school committees on Friday, the first action under the city’s grievance procedure created in 2021.
Superintendent David Banks fired Taj Sutton, president of Brooklyn’s Community Education Council 14, and Maude Maron, president of Manhattan’s Community Education Council 2, after various complaints were filed against both.
“I am saddened that New York City Public Schools has been forced to take the action I ordered today, but the violations committed by these two individuals make them unfit to serve in these positions,” Banks said in a statement, without naming the women.
Maron told The Washington Post that he learned of his firing minutes before the memo was sent.
Banks suggested the pair had not complied with laws governing local education council meetings, particularly the open meetings law.
Sutton and Maron are the first school board members to be removed under the city’s D-210 grievance procedure.
Maron has previously criticized Bill D-210, arguing that “parents who dare challenge current orthodoxy are being investigated, harassed, and barred from elected office.”
Sutton and Maron were served with D-210 complaints in separate incidents in April.
Sutton was reprimanded by Mayor Banks for encouraging a citywide student walkout in protest of the Israel-Hamas war, which he argued violated several state laws, one of which put Sutton at risk of being permanently barred from serving on any city commissions.
The same week, Maron was accused of making “derogatory or offensive comments” about public school students in an interview with The Washington Post.
Maron said the signature of a student who wrote an editorial in the Stuyvesant High School newspaper that was widely criticized as anti-Semitic “should say ‘coward,’ not ‘anonymous.'”
Sutton and Maron are also embroiled in legal disputes with each other.
Maron and several other parents claim Sutton’s CEC14 is violating free speech laws by barring conservative parents from public events.
The lawsuit accuses Sutton and First Vice President Marissa Manzanares of “not tolerating the presence of those who disagree with them,” according to court documents.
