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Elizabeth Corker recall, Blaine County School District, Idaho (2016)
| Blaine County School District Board of Trustees recall |
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| Officeholders |
| Recall status |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2016 Recalls in Idaho Idaho recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
An effort to recall Elizabeth Corker from her position as Zone 5 representative on the Blaine County School District board of trustees failed to reach the ballot. Supporters of the recall had to submit their petition by April 8, 2016, but they were unable to meet that deadline.[1]
The effort was launched in January 2016. Recall supporters listed eight reasons to oust Corker, including not considering her constituents' priorities, lack of transparency, not supporting the superintendent, and attempting to dismantle the district's finance committee.[2] Corker resigned from the board in January 2017, nine months after the recall effort failed. She said she was no longer willing to be a member of a board that rubber-stamped the superintendent’s plans rather than holding her accountable to the citizens of the district.[3]
Corker served on the board from July 2013 to January 2017. She was first appointed to her seat and then automatically re-elected to a four-year term in 2015 when no one filed to run against her.[2][3][4]
Recall supporters
The initial intent to petition to recall was filed by Darlene Dyer, a retired Blaine County School District teacher. She and the 19 other individuals who signed the intent to petition listed the following eight reasons to recall Corker from her position, according to the Idaho Mountain Express:[2]
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| —Idaho Mountain Express (February 3, 2016)[2] | ||
Recall opponents
Corker resigned from the board in January 2017. She published the following editorial in the Idaho Mountain Express explaining her decision.[3]
| “ | For three and a half years, I have served on the Blaine County School District board of trustees. For more than 10 years, I have been an active promoter of educational excellence in Blaine County. Among other things, I led a grassroots effort at the Legislature to save property-tax funding of schools. I have volunteered countless hours in the classroom, served as PTA co-president, and more. There are many good things in the School District, and I am a huge champion of its students, teachers and employees.
In 2007, I began to realize that the board was not setting policy and leading the district the way a good and healthy school board should. The chain of authority, which is supposed to flow from patrons (i.e. citizens, taxpayers) to board to superintendent, was upside-down. It still is. The job of a school board member is clear. Board members are elected not to rubber-stamp administration’s plans, but to hold it accountable to the owners of the district—taxpayers and citizens. It is the community’s values and priorities, not the superintendent’s, that must drive the board’s spending and policy-making decisions. As a board member, I have worked consistently and diligently to restore the patron-board-superintendent relationship to its proper configuration. For this, I have been vilified and attacked by a few vocal administrators and community members who disagree with the notion that the board should set priorities and goals based on our community’s student-centered priorities. They would prefer that I not ask questions, but simply follow the superintendent’s agenda, even when it diverges markedly from the “will of the community.” In the past year, the district has spent tens of thousands of dollars to gather “owner” input. This input shows that our community wants: 1) smaller class sizes, 2) less spending on district office administration, 3) drastic reduction or elimination of the costly Communications Department. Data supporting these community priorities is so overwhelming that it is hard to imagine how our superintendent and three board members have been able to override it. For example, district-led budget meetings show “Administration—District Office” was soundly rejected as a “value proposition” by a community vote of 325 to 8. Similarly “Communications Department” was rejected as a “value proposition” by community vote of 225 to 10. And yet, for the past year and a half, three of five members of the board have acted in direct opposition to this input. They have supported the superintendent’s agenda, which has added, not reduced, administrative positions, as well as average cost per position. The Communications Department budget is now $220,000—an unheard-of amount. All of this costs kids in the classroom. It also hurts teacher morale. Our community strongly supports education, as evidenced by $16,000-per-pupil funding. However, it does not support district office leadership that ignores overwhelming public input and enriches itself with money that citizens believe should be spent on the needs of children. When the district superintendent recommends increasing her own compensation package by almost $8,000 in one year to a new record of $173,880 for the highest superintendent salary in Idaho while proposing cuts in programs and positions that help the neediest children, such as Hispanic liaison, special needs liaison, after-school programs, Mountain Rides, etc., something is very wrong. The fact that three of five board members voted for these backward priorities anyway, despite outcry from hundreds of citizens, is an indication of a board that is simply not doing its job. I am no longer willing to continue to be a member of a board that does not reflect our community’s values in significant policy and budgetary decisions. I hereby submit my resignation, effective immediately. Only if the board begins to put your student-centered priorities first will we have the exceptional taxpayer-funded school district that our children deserve. Only then will more money will be spent in the classroom. Only then will students truly come first.[5] |
” |
| —Elizabeth Corker (2016)[3] | ||
Background
Superintendent's contract renewed after open meetings complaint
The Blaine County Board of Trustees voted 3-2 to extend the contract of Superintendent GwenCarol Holmes by three years on January 6, 2016. Corker and fellow trustee Cami Bustos cast the two dissenting votes.[6]
This was not the first time Holmes' contract had been renewed. The board voted unanimously to renew her contract until 2019 in November 2015. Board members voted to nullify that decision in December 2015, however, after Blaine County Prosecutor Jim Thomas said they had not provided necessary notice of their intent to discuss a contract renewal.[6]
Holmes was the highest paid superintendent in Idaho for the 2014-2015 school year, receiving $168,000 for the year. Her new contract included a salary of $173,880.[6]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in Idaho
Dyer filed the initial intent to petition to recall, which included 20 signatures of Zone 5 residents, with Blaine County officials on January 25, 2016. She had until April 8, 2016, to collect 489 signatures from eligible voters in Zone 5 to get the recall on the ballot. The number of signatures was equal to 20 percent of the 2,445 voters who cast ballots in the last Zone 5 school board election.[2] Dyer did not submit the petition to recall by the deadline, and the recall effort failed.[1]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Liz Corker' 'Blaine County School District' recall. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Blaine County School District, Idaho
- Recall campaigns in Idaho
- Political recall efforts, 2016
- School board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Abbey Smith, “Email communication with the Blaine County Elections Office," April 11, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Idaho Mountain Express, "Petition filed to recall School District trustee," February 3, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Idaho Mountain Express, "School board must put students first," January 11, 2017
- ↑ Blaine County School District, "Board of Trustees," accessed February 16, 2016
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Idaho Ed News, "Blaine Votes — Again — To Extend Superintendent’s Contract," January 11, 2016
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