School Board Election? Wait and See
Is their race already run? The presence of school board candidates on the April ballot will depend on the rate at which the state proceeds with the State Advisory Committee's recommendations.
The recommendations mean the dissolution of the elected School Board and the appointment of a three-member committee to restructure and run the district. The findings were released today, but potential legal and logistical hurdles could slow implementation.
At the St. Louis Board of Elections, they are proceeding normally until they get the definitive word from the state said Republican Election Commissioner, Scott Leindecker.
"We'll still be prepared to hold the election if we need to," said Leindecker.
Leindecker said they could make changes right up to their own deadline for preparing ballots which immediately follows the March primary.
If, for some reason, the final decision is not made until after the necessary printed material is printed, Leindecker said there is no harm in leaving the names on the ballot since they will no longer mean anything.
"It will cost us more to take them off then to leave them on," said Leindecker. The same applies to the electronic voting machines since a second evaluation test would need to be performed on all the machines following any changes.
According to the written report by the advisory committee, the appointment of a three-member committee is contingent upon the district losing its accreditation. The district may not lose its accreditation.
Some are so anxious for state takeover that they are not reading the report carefully.
Posted by Philo-Teknos on Fri., Dec 15, 2006 at 10:00 PMAt the time I wrote the post I was relying on reports in the newspaper for the details.
As you point out, the critical point is DESE's decision on whether the district will retain accreditation or not.
If the district loses accreditation the Advisory Committee recommends a transitional committee to run the district.
If the district retains accreditation the district recommends DESE 1. appoint a district to monitoring committee or, 2. have the State Legislature appoint a board with full authority. That authority is contingent on the district: A. operating with a deficit, B. operating on borrowed money, and C. is not fully accredited and does not currently meet the standards needed. The SLPS meets two of those three criteria (the best it can hope for is provisional accreditation, and it is operating on funds borrowed from the deseg agreement that it will begin paying back in 2008).
Given the Advisory Committee's preference for some form of body with authority to run the district, I think its safe to say the committee would prefer option two.
Posted by Matthew Murphy on Sat., Dec 16, 2006 at 3:49 PM
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