Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 26, 1993 TAG: 9312300035
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But such uncertainty isn't among the serious drawbacks to elected school boards. In most if not all cases, the questions provoking the uncertainty should prove no more than a minor hitch. Moreover, they largely stem from a good feature of the new system.
Voters in more than half Virginia's school districts now have approved elected school boards by big margins. Most of the uncertainty about how to make the transition arises from the requirement that the new school-board elections must coincide with elections of county supervisors or city council members from the same districts.
One good point about this requirement is that it brings a measure of uniformity to the process.
The current non-elected system is actually several different kinds of systems. Both Roanoke and Montgomery counties, for example, now have appointed school boards. But they differ in significant ways. In Roanoke County, a five-member school board is named by a judicially appointed commission; each member represents one of the county's five supervisors' districts. In Montgomery County, a nine-member board is appointed by the Board of Supervisors; of the nine, each of seven represents one of Montgomery's seven supervisors' districts, while the other two represent the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
Both counties have voted to go to elected school boards. The new systems in the two counties almost surely will be more like each other than are their current systems.
Making school-board elections coincide with governing-body elections also reduces the chances of a couple of worst-case scenarios regarding elected school boards.
It should, for example, boost turnout in school-board elections. This should lessen the prospect of school-board takeovers by small but dedicated single-issue or special-interest factions.
It also implies that the same set of voters will be choosing both governing-body members and school-board members. This may help to narrow the gap between those who control the purse-strings and those who'll set other aspects of school policy.
Which isn't to say that all transition issues are merely legal technicalities about shortening appointed members' terms, or bringing local charters into alignment.
In Roanoke County, a substantive issue has arisen with the supervisors' plan to have all five board members elected in 1995, rather than phasing in the new system with some seats up for election that year and others two years later. That opens the way for a totally inexperienced board, which School Board Chairman Frank Thomas has said could spell the "ruination and downfall" of Roanoke County's schools. Thomas exaggerates, but he has a point.
Nor does providing for school-board elections to coincide with governing-body elections make elected school boards preferable to appointed boards. The provision mitigates some of the potential damage, but doesn't forestall it completely.
And it has no evident impact on another drawback: limiting school-board membership to people with the time and inclination for political campaigns. Many sitting school-board members now pondering their futures will decide to leave public service.
Nevertheless, if elected school boards are an irrepressible public desire, as they seem to be, then they should be put into place as cleanly and with as many safeguards as possible. For that, having government lawyers fire questions and answers back and forth between Richmond and local courthouses seems an acceptably small price.
by CNB