Wednesday, Feb. 03, 2010

We tried changing Wake's school board elections

I read Matthew Eisley's interesting Jan. 6 editor's column, "Give voters power," and I have some information on how the Wake County school board election might be changed to better serve Wake County citizens.

In 1996, when I was the chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, we voted unanimously on a proclamation that we go to a countywide election of school board members.

We also recommended downsizing the school board from nine to seven members, which would be the same as the board of commissioners. And we suggested that they live in the same districts as the county commissioners.

All people in the county would be able to vote for all the school board instead of just one member, just as all people vote for all the county commissioners.

The county commissioners sent me, along with County Manager Richard Stevens and County Attorney Mike Ferrell, to meet with the Wake County legislative delegation.

All the Democrats in our delegation were in favor of the proclamation in the Senate and House. But then Sen. John Carrington, a Republican, spoke up and said it wasn't needed. That killed it, because the protocol of the General Assembly requires unanimous support of the local legislative delegation to pass a local bill.

With the magnet schools, we have children going to school all over the county. You can live in one school board district and have a child going to school in another.

Then when someone needs help and calls a school board member, they are told the school is not in their district and get referred to another school board member.

They then call the other school board member and still get no help. because the board member will generally help only voters in their district.

The school board has to be responsive to the whole county. Even though I lived in Raleigh when I was a commissioner, when someone would call me from Zebulon or Fuquay-Varina, I paid attention to their needs and would try to help them.

In addition, I think we would be able to get more qualified people to run for the school board and promote a higher voter turnout. That would be better than the present, when 9 percent of the voters have determined the composition of the school board.

Gary H. Pendleton

Raleigh