An end-of-the-year gift for a Glen Ridge [New Jersey], High School teacher has led to a minor dispute between school administration and the students and parents.
Except this wasn't just any end-of-the-year gift.
A group of students started a GoFundMe campaign this spring to raise money to buy two tickets for the Broadway musical "Hamilton," as a thank-you gift for AP U.S. history teacher Cecelia Lynch.
But this month, school administrators told the donors that the tickets were in violation of the school's policy on gifts to teachers. In response, several students and parents showed up at Monday night's Board of Education meeting to ask the board to reconsider.
The past and present students in the audience included Sarah Gang, Sonia Kinkhabwala and Rachel McDonough, while the parents included Priti Kinkhabwala, Ellen Bleckman and Beth Low.
Tickets for "Hamilton" are hard to come by, and it is not unusual for ticket prices for the Tony Award-winning show to range well into the thousands of dollars. As of Tuesday morning, the ticket website StubHub.com had prices for the next two weeks' performances ranging from $1,151 to $1,616.
The district's gift policy states, "No teaching staff member of the Board shall except any gift, favor, service or other thing of value under circumstances from which it might be reasonably inferred that such gift, service or other thing of value was given or offered for the purpose of influencing the teaching staff member in the discharge of his/her duties."
Student response
In response, students sent a letter to the school administrators asking them to reconsider. The letter maintained that since the donations were coming from the larger community, the tickets could not be construed as a potential bribe or an attempt to influence a teacher's work.
"A hit musical based on the thing that she loves most in the world does not come along every day. For years, [Lynch] has taught students about the legacy of Alexander Hamilton, so much that immediately upon hearing of our proposal, people knew how much it would mean to her to see this play," the letter stated.
The letter said that the donors included "even a member of the Glen Ridge Board of Education," but did not identify that member.
The GoFundMe campaign raised $1,600. The individual donations ranged from $5 to $100. Bleckman said the average donation was $25 or $26, which she estimated was the same amount as a Starbucks gift certificate or other gift often given to Glen Ridge teachers.
"We did not know how popular this was going to become ... but clearly people felt strongly about it. They supported it," Priti Kinkhabwala said.
Sonia Kinkhabwala noted that whenever she listened to the "Hamilton" soundtrack she always thought of Lynch's classes.
McDonough said Lynch had been following the musical's development since before it went to Broadway, and that the show meant a great deal to her.
"So I think it goes beyond, 'oh, she likes history, let's give her a history thing.'"
"This idea was put forth by our kids, because ... the situation sort of presented itself. It seemed to match perfectly, the Hamilton show with this particular teacher," Bleckman said. "If the spirit of the policy is to avoid any sort of bribery or any sort of impropriety by a teacher ... that's not really relevant here."
The donors included people from outside the district, and students who were not currently in one of Lynch's classes.
Bleckman noted that all of the grades for the year have been issued, and that the students who led the fundraising effort would not be in Lynch's classes the following year. She said the gift was meant to show appreciation and gratitude.
Fate of the tickets
If the board stands by its policy, then the alternative would be to try to sell the tickets and refund the donors' money, Bleckman said, which would be quite difficult.
Board President Betsy Ginsburg said it was encouraging to see the amount of generosity and passion that students and parents were showing. "We understand what you said, the motivation behind the gift," Ginsburg said. "We understand that the policy needs some work. That's a separate issue."
Ginsburg asked the public for a few more weeks to discuss the matter, since the tickets were dated for October. She said the board was considering a number of compromises for the ticket situation, but did not go into detail about what those might involve.
"Some problems you can solve in an instant," observed the BOE president. "Some problems it's better to have a good, deliberate solution."
