It started back in June. My kids came home from school and said that there was going to be a school board meeting that night and their teachers told them to tell their parents to go. I had never attended a school board meeting before, but for some reason that night I decided why not check it out and see what it was like. I was in for quite a surprise.
The first thing that struck me was the number of people in attendance. The room quickly filled up and the crowd overflowed into the halls and out into the street. Fortunately for me, I had come a little early and secured a seat among a large group of teachers who filled me in on how things worked. I was surprised the meeting hadn’t started but the teachers around me filled me in that a large part of the meeting was held behind closed doors and the public portion of the meeting would start soon. Sure enough, one by one, the board members filed in and the meeting started.
I won’t go into the details of the meeting but the thing that struck me was the animosity between the board and the teachers and administration staff in attendance. You could feel the tension in the air and it was uncomfortable to watch. I followed along as the board reviewed a number of topics and then the public had the opportunity to speak. Several people made very passionate and heartfelt comments. I don’t know what I expected, but it didn’t seem like either side was very pleased at the outcome of the meeting. As the meeting ended, Gayle Rogers announced that she would be resigning her position on the board as she was moving out of the district.
I attended a second meeting in June and it pretty much played out the same as before. At this meeting there were references to the budget crisis and a representative from the district provided some dire warnings about what could happen if a balanced three year budget was not adopted. There were more comments from the public and they seemed even more upset than the previous meeting. People held up signs and specific comments were directed to members of the board and the distrust seemed to be growing. At the end of the meeting, Jan Averill announced that after 38 years on the board, she would not be seeking reelection. She made the comment that she would like to see someone from the audience consider running. I felt a few pokes from behind and a whisper in my ear, “You should run.” And that got me thinking.
A little bit of research and I found that it wasn’t hard to run for a seat on the board. You only had to be over the age of 18 and a resident of the district. There wasn’t even a filing fee. Imagine my surprise when I found that the election in 2008 was the first contested election in over 15 years! Most years, the incumbents were the only people that filed for office, so their terms were automatically renewed. I felt that there should at least be an election and the open spots should not be appointed. My mind was made up and I decided that I would run for a seat on the board.
The good news is that we now have seven candidates running for the three open positions on the board! I think it is great that there will be a competitive election this year. The district will only benefit from the open exchange of ideas and there are candidates with a wide variety of experience running. I do think that I am one of the best qualified candidates, but more on that later………
