Sixty-three candidates for seven seats: an overview of November's top school board elections
November 8, 2016
By Mandy Gillip
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School board elections occupy a unique place in the American political landscape. These hyper-local races are diverse, complex, and sometimes controversial. The top school board races in 2016 exemplify the varied interests and issues that define the contests for school board membership. The structure of school district governance, the form of school district funding, and school district academic performance are among the various issues that may dominate any given election cycle.
On Tuesday, 428 of America's largest school districts by enrollment held elections. Five of these districts have been identified by Ballotpedia as exemplifying the complex nature of school board elections. After the historic dissolution of the school board in Detroit, constituents chose seven new members, including one member of the disbanded board, to take on the district's immense financial challenges. In New Jersey, the election of three candidates to the Jersey City school board inextricably links the school district to Jersey City political leaders. Elections in the Los Banos Unified School District in California and the Clark County School District in Nevada featured conflicts between members of the school board and members of the community. Voters in the Pinellas County Schools school district in Florida opted to re-elect an incumbent directly involved in a decision that led to an ongoing civil rights investigation.
These races highlight only several of many issues voters may face when casting a ballot in school board elections.
Detroit Public Community District
Detroit's board of education election represented a turning point in the board's composition and power. City schools were placed under the management of a state-appointed emergency manager in March 2009 due to budget deficits and declining academic performance. On July 1, 2016, a state law divided Detroit Public Schools (DPS) into two districts: DPS and the Detroit Public Schools Community District. DPS remains as a legal entity to pay down more than $400 million in debt. The Detroit Public Schools Community District manages day-to-day operations for public schools in conjunction with the state-appointed Detroit Financial Review Commission.
The 11-member board for Detroit Public Schools will be replaced by a seven-member board when new members take office in January 2017. The emergency manager's office will be eliminated after the first meeting of the board. All seven seats on the new board were on the ballot in 2016. Sixty-three candidates, including 10 of the 11 previous members of the board, filed to take on challenges that include enrollment decreases, funding issues, and relations with state government. Of these candidates, three running as part of the 5 for the Future slate won seats on the board: Angelique Nicole Peterson-Mayberry, Deborah Hunter-Harvill, and Misha Stallworth. Former board member Tawanna Simpson also won a seat on the newly constituted board. The final two spots were taken by Georgia Lemmons and Sonya Mays.
The restructuring bill was touted by Gov. Rick Snyder (R) as "a new day for Detroit families, with DPS free from debt and strong accountability measures for all schools in the city that promises a brighter future for all of Detroit's children."[1][2] The Michigan Association of School Boards, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, and Democratic legislators from the city criticized the lack of local input into the district's reorganization.[3] Three lawsuits were filed between July 2016 and September 2016 alleging that the legislation was unconstitutional due to concerns about its impact on local governance and student performance.[4][5][6]
Jersey City Public Schools
In the long-struggling Jersey City Public Schools, a regular election for three of nine seats on the board of education took place. Three candidate slates emerged in the school board race with differing views on solving the district's pervasive classroom and administrative problems. Although no major issues dominated the race, the election was marred by contentious candidate forums and infighting among board incumbents.[7] In total, ten candidates filed in the race to fill the seats of three incumbents who did not seek re-election. The at-large positions were won by newcomers Luis Fernandez, Sudhan Thomas, and former board member Angel Valentin who served on the board from 2002 to 2013. Both Thomas and Valentin ran as members of the Education Matters slate of candidates, which was endorsed by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop (D). Fernandez ran as a member of the Jersey City United slate, along with fellow candidates Asmaa Abdalla and Matthew Schapiro.
Election results
The victory of Fernandez and Valentin closely ties the Jersey City board to Jersey City municipal leaders. The Education Matters slate also swept the elections in 2015, adding three Fulop-backed members to the board. The slate was a reprisal of the Children First Team, also endorsed by Mayor Fulop, which saw the election of two candidates to the board in 2014. In total, seven (78 percent) of sitting members on the Jersey City Board of Education ran as members of a candidate slate endorsed by both Fulop and local teacher union the Jersey City Education Association between 2014 and 2016. The race in 2016 attracted more candidates than in recent years, with an average of 3.33 running per seat, while the average number of candidates running per seat was 1.33 in 2015.
| Jersey City Public Schools: 2016 Candidate Slate Platforms | ||
|---|---|---|
| Education Matters | Jersey City United | Fix It Now |
| Shorten board meetings | Commitment to district diversity | Multi-lingual accessibility |
| Build relationships with city leaders | Increase responsiveness to constituent demands | Create mentor programs to prevent student violence |
| Improve school curriculum and infrastructure | Modernize communications between the school district and district parents | Build close relationships between the board of education and state and local officials |
Until the spring of 2016, the Jersey City board had been run, at least in part, by the New Jersey Department of Education. The district was taken over in 1989 and the last portions of control returned to the district were operations, personnel, and curriculum and instruction. The newly autonomous board is expected to tackle funding issues during the coming years, including a plan proposed by Gov. Chris Christie (R) that would significantly decrease the per-pupil funding received by the district.[8]
Los Banos Unified School District
Two weeks after the candidate filing deadline closed for the Los Banos Board of Education election, Trustee Area 2 incumbent and former mayor Tommy Jones was arrested on bribery charges related to a construction contract for the district. After his arrest, residents of Trustee Area 2 and the president of the Los Banos Teachers Association called for Jones' resignation. Jones, however, maintained his innocence and refused to step down. Members of the school board responded by calling a special meeting to censure Jones in September 2016. This action helped to split the race for three school board seats into two camps: those supported by the teachers union and those supported by the Community Advocacy Coalition (CAC), a local advocacy group.[9] Constituents opted to elect the three candidates supported by the teachers union in Trustee Areas 2, 4, and 6. Newcomers Megan Goin-Soares and Margaret Benton took Areas 2 and 6, while incumbent Dominic Falasco won re-election in Area 4. Falasco was also arrested in 2016 on two misdemeanor drug charges.
Election results
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Trustee Area 2 |
Trustee Area 4 |
Trustee Area 6 |
The 2016 race mirrored the district's 2012 school board election in which each seat on the ballot had two candidates running. Though voters added only two newcomers to the board in the general election, a total of three new members were elected in 2016 as a newcomer defeated an incumbent in a recall election on August 23, 2016.
Outside of the arrests of two board members, a civil lawsuit was filed against the district, seeking to change the district's training and monitoring of teachers after a student was allegedly molested by two teachers. The district was also admonished in July 2016 when a civil grand jury found it had not followed protocol when it built the new Creekside Junior High School.
Clark County School District
In 2016, Clark County, the nation's fifth-largest school district, obtained legislative approval to undertake a massive restructuring. The plan divided constituents, community activists, and school board members. Seventeen candidates initially filed in the election, but the field was narrowed to eight candidates after primary elections were held on June 14, 2016. In the end, incumbents Deanna Wright, Christine Garvey, and Linda Young retained their seats in Districts A, B, and C. In District E, incumbent Margaret Patrice Tew was defeated by challenger Lola Brooks.
Election results
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District A |
District B |
District C |
District E |
The election attracted 4.3 candidates per seat for the four seats up for election. The last election for the district that attracted a similar slate of candidates was the 2010 election, which also saw four candidates per seat.
| School board election trends | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Candidates per seat | Unopposed seats | Incumbent success rate | Seats won by newcomers | |
| Clark County School District | |||||
| 2016 | 4.3 | 0.00% | TBD | TBD | |
| 2014 | 3.3 | 0.00% | 66.67% | 33.33% | |
| Nevada | |||||
| 2014 | 2.6 | 44.44% | 71.43% | 33.33% | |
| United States | |||||
| 2015 | 1.72 | 32.57% | 81.31% | 38.24% | |
| 2014 | 1.89 | 35.97% | 82.66% | 40.77% | |
The school board members will begin working to implement the district restructuring during the 2016-2017 school district. Each school will become its own district with the principal acting as the primary decision maker on issues such as budget, personnel, salaries, and curriculum. The restructuring also requires the central office to cut its budget to 20 percent of the overall district budget, distributing 80 percent of the district's funding to the schools. Despite support from lawmakers, principals, city officials, and the teachers union, there were concerns from others in the community, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Clark County School Board, about the ramifications of the reorganization. There is specific concern that it may widen the student achievement gap as a result of a new teacher salary policy that requires each school to pay an average teacher salary into a district-wide fund regardless of what they pay the teachers in their schools.
Pinellas County Schools
With ongoing scrutiny over the poor performance of minority students in Pinellas County Schools, district residents opted to elect two newcomers, and to re-elect one incumbent, to the school board in 2016. It is important to note that elections in Florida function differently than those in other states. A primary election was held on August 30 but was functionally a general election. The election held on November 8, although referred to as a general election, was functionally a runoff election. In District 4, newcomer Eileen Long defeated incumbent Ken Peluso outright in the primary election. In District 5, incumbent Carol Cook secured another term, and in the at-large race in District 1, newcomer Joanne Lentino defeated candidate Matt Stewart in the general election.
Election results
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At-Large District 1 |
District 4 |
District 5 |
Between 1998 and 2014, Pinellas Schools had an incumbency success rate of 100 percent. Each time an incumbent filed for re-election during that period, he or she won an additional term on the board. The incumbent winning streak was halted earlier this year when board incumbent Ken Peluso lost his bid for re-election in the primary election on August 30. A report published in 2015, which described the daily strife of black students in five of the district's elementary schools, may be responsible for the loss of community support for board incumbents. According to the Tampa Bay Times, black children in the district failed at a higher rate than almost any other district in the state. In 2014, they were one-third more likely to fail at math than black students in Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, and Palm Beach counties. They were 23 percent more likely to fail math than black children in Hillsborough. The investigation tied these students' struggles to a 2007 decision by the school board to effectively segregate the district's schools, and the report triggered a still-in-progress civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.[10] The report, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting, described the board's vote as a symptom of other deep-seated problems in the district. Three of the board members who voted for the de-integration plan still sat on the board in 2016: Peggy O'Shea, Linda Lerner, and the freshly re-elected Carol Cook.
See also
| School board elections portal | News and analysis | |
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Footnotes
- ↑ Detroit Free Press, "Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signs $617M Detroit schools bailout," June 21, 2016
- ↑ Governor Rick Snyder, "Gov. Rick Snyder signs bill package strengthening educational opportunities for Detroit's children, returning control to locally elected board," June 21, 2016
- ↑ Michigan Association of School Boards, "MASB Executive Director Don Wotruba issued the following statement on the passage of Detroit Public Schools legislation," accessed August 9, 2016
- ↑ Detroit Free Press, "Lawsuit seeking to block DPS changes gets hearing," August 4, 2016
- ↑ The Detroit News, "Detroit parents ask court to bar uncertified teachers," August 24, 2016
- ↑ Business Insider, "An 8th grader had to teach a math class for a month because Detroit schools were so understaffed, lawsuit alleges," September 16, 2016
- ↑ New Jersey, "Jersey City school board race turning ugly," October 17, 2016
- ↑ New Jersey, "Jersey City schools face threat of changes in state funding," September 8, 2016
- ↑ Merced Sun-Star, "Ex-Los Banos Mayor Tommy Jones arrested on bribery charges," August 31, 2016
- ↑ Tampa Bay Times, "Failure Factories," accessed July 25, 2016
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