Leadership of an anti-violence nonprofit that runs programs within the Allentown School District is calling for the removal of a school board director over what they called “unprofessional” behavior.
Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley staff said they filed a formal complaint with the district about Director Phoebe Harris and want her removed from the governing body.
Meanwhile, Harris said she was “bullied” by some of the nonprofit staff at a district event earlier this week.
Harris said she confronted a Promise Neighborhoods staff member at Tuesday’s safety forum at Allen High School for allegedly calling an Allentown resident a racial slur at a City Council meeting earlier this year.
“I whispered into his ear and I said, ‘How dare you be here because you said this about this Black man,’” Harris recounted.
Harris said she was upset to see the staff member participating in the ASD event.
Later Tuesday evening, Harris claims she was told by a community member that Promise Neighborhoods staff wanted to speak with her outside the school building. She went outside to find the staff member she confronted and other Promise Neighborhood employees, she said.
Harris said she felt threatened during the confrontation.
The dispute continued at Thursday’s school board meeting, with the Promise Neighborhoods staff member saying it was Harris who used offensive language, calling her a “liability” to the school district.
The same staff member said Harris used her position as a school director to bring a community member into the Tuesday safety forum who was banned from district property; Harris apologized and said she didn’t know the person was banned.
The staff member claimed Harris has 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.”
“This is a vote of no confidence due to misuse of power,” Jeani Garcia, Promise Neighborhoods operations director, said Thursday during public comment.
Yet the leader of another nonprofit was critical of how Promise Neighborhoods was handling the dispute.
Pas Simpson, founder and executive director of the student-focused One Big Smile, said at the board meeting Thursday the organization wasn’t practicing the cure violence model they promote.
“Violence prevention means we’re intervening and then we change the norm,” Simpson said. “Violence prevention says that we’re going to make sure that two polar opposites don’t bump heads when there are other options.”
The district’s solicitor said the school board has limited authority to remove a school director.
“There is no provision for removal of a board member for activity which members of the community or others may think is inappropriate or otherwise incorrect,” said Jeffrey Sultanik, an attorney for the district.
Sultanik said the board will publicly deliberate and respond to the formal complaint about Harris at the board’s next meeting on Oct. 26.
Morning Call reporter Jenny Roberts can be reached at 484-903-1732 and jroberts@mcall.com.
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