THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 9, 1994 TAG: 9407090240
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
City voters will decide for the first time this fall whether to switch from an appointed School Board to an elected one.
A circuit judge on Friday ordered a Nov. 8 referendum after the registrar had approved the required number of petition signatures supporting an elected board.
If voters approve the change, the first School Board election would be in May 1996, along with City Council elections.
``This will allow the community to have more of a voice,'' said Brian ``Keith'' Nance Sr., 34, a leader of Portsmouth Citizens for Better Education Inc., which spearheaded the petition drive last year.
In a school year that brought a controversial decision to end elementary-school busing for desegregation purposes, and the lingering idea of turning over some schools to private managers, the chance to switch to an elected board could not have come sooner for some.
``It's time that the community dictates who sits up there,'' said Rafiq Zaidi, president of the Black Concerned Citizens of Portsmouth. ``With busing, privatization and a lot of other things on the table, we need more people who are tied right to the communities.''
Meanwhile, Chesapeake is still considering whether to take on the U.S. Justice Department, which has said that proposed at-large School Board elections in that city would not give black candidates a fair chance at being elected. Chesapeake City Council members are elected at-large.
Portsmouth, about evenly split between blacks and whites, also elects City Council members at-large. Whether the federal government would intervene there, too, is unclear.
Reactions were mixed Friday among a cross-section of city residents, most of whom said they liked the idea of giving voters the chance to pick those who make rules governing the district's nearly 18,000 students - the majority of whom are poor.
But without the power of the purse, others said, an elected board's value would be mainly symbolic. They also warned of candidates who would use board seats only as political steppingstones.
``It really wouldn't have a lot of significance because board members wouldn't have the power to tax. They would still be subjected to the whims of council,'' said council member Johnny M. Clemons.
Board Chairman J. Thomas Benn III agreed.
``I don't think an elected School Board would make things any better,'' Benn said. ``In fact, it could be worse if people began to think more in terms of their individual interests instead of the good of the whole system.''
Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Newport News and Hampton held their first-ever board elections in May. In four of 16 school board races across the state, nearly all of the candidates ran unopposed. Overall, voter participation was 20 percent to 30 percent.
Still, Portsmouth supporters welcomed the prospect of voters having a greater say. And, they said, elections could bring more neighborhood diversity to the board.
``We've had a lot of people from Churchland on the board,'' Zaidi said, ``people who can't really relate with some of the southside communities.'' Zaidi himself circulated some petitions on the issue last summer in a separate push.
Said Mary Jo Coley, a district teacher: ``I have mixed emotions. Still, I like the idea that there's some accountability to the people, not just City Council.
``But I don't think elections will be the quick fix to our problems,'' she added.
Council members appointed three board members - two incumbents and a newcomer - last month, changing the board from a 5-4 white majority to a 5-4 black majority. Zaidi said such decisions should not be left to a white-majority City Council.
The school district is about 67 percent black.
An elected board would be ``absolutely fantastic,'' said Shirley F. Hines, leader of the political action committee of the city's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The switch, she said, could spur greater grass-roots participation in public school issues, especially among black residents who may now feel left out of key school decisions. by CNB