"OPT-OUT" Wins School Board Seats

[Chris_Wendt]

From Newsday, Candidates Backed by LI Opt-Out won 21 seats on Boards of Education on May 20th (link to article).

Included in this toll were six seats where incumbents were ousted by challenging Opt-Out candidates.

This is really no big whoop, considering there were 250 seats filled on 126 Boards of Education across Long Island last week.

Or could this be a harbinger of a bigger push to come?

Regards,

Chris Wendt

[Chris_Wendt]

There is more to this story than meets the eye. (The obfuscation on the part of the author or editor caused me drill-down into the Island-wide school board election results, to try to find what they were hiding.) Here are some salient points about the "Opt-Out" candidates in the context of the grand scheme of things in Long Island school districts:

• Nine (9) of the twenty one (21) successful "Opt-Out" candidates were incumbents, re-elected to their own seats. These included the hotbeds of the Opt-Out movement, Comesewogue, Rockville Centre and Hewlett-Woodmere, where all board seats in contention went to incumbent "Opt-Out" candidates
  
  • Comsewogue...........3 out of 3 incumbents re-elected, under the "Opt-Out" banner
  • Hewlett-Woodmere...2 out of 2 incumbents re-elected, etc.
  • Rockville Centre.......2 out of 2 incumbents re-elected, etc.
  Kings Park and Levittown each re-elected one incumbent flying the "Opt-Out" pennant
• Although the article clearly states that six (6) "Opt-Out" candidates unseated incumbents, such is not entirely truthful. Incumbents were unseated and defeated by "Opt -Out" candidates in head-to-head voting in these school districts:
  
  • Amityville
  • East Meadow
  • Levittown
  • Patchogue-Medford (where the defeated incumbent was also the sitting BoE President, and where the sitting V.P. was also ousted, but not in head-to-head competition with the successful Opt-Out candidates)
• In the Rocky Point and Jericho School Districts elections, three incumbents were not re-elected, and two "Opt-Out" candidates won seats for the first time, but none of those were head-to-head voting situations between "Opt-Out" advocates and the unsuccessful incumbents.

It is noted that in some of these school districts, there are seven-member boards. Also, in several of them, Trustee seats are elected on a head-to-head basis, unlike in Wantagh, where Trustees are all elected at-large with the winners determined by share of the total votes cast. Head-to-head Board of Education Trustee voting is usually conducted in Central School Districts, where the consolidation agreements specify (mandate) proportional representation from each community, as, one seat belongs to Patchogue, while the other seat belongs to Medford, for example.

I don't want to down-play these results, but neither do I want to let stand the illusion that "Opt-Out" scored some big victory among school boards this year. The movement's organizers were certainly able to bend the perspective and stretch the credibility of Newsday in its reportage, however.

Chris Wendt

[Chris_Wendt]

Now what?

This is a great setup for a classic lesson in "Boardsmanship" (the operating philosophy of successful and unsuccessful Boards of Education, everywhere). This lesson even has a title: "The Single-Issue Board Member" (or, board members in the case of several of the districts reported on above).

But first, let's review the facts:

• Nine (9) of the recently elected "Opt-Out" Trustees were incumbents who were re-elected to their own seats
• In three (3) districts, already known for being hotbeds of "Opt-Out" foment, all open Trustee seats were won by "Opt-Out" incumbents: Comsewogue (3/3); Rockville Center (2/2); Hewlett-Woodmere (2/2)
• That makes 12 newly-minted Board Trustees with "Opt-Out" leanings who will be seated in twelve LI school districts in July. A veritable sprinkling. Taken altogether, these "Opt-Out" elections may amount to a smattering, meaning a few clumps more than a sprinkling, but less than a schmear among our 125 school districts.

---

Now, here's the problem. Remember the title of the Boardsmanship lesson: "The Single-Issue Board Member". About to commence, on July 1, their 3-year terms as Board of Education Trustees, responsible for policy and budgets, and employee relations, and school performance and compliance with regulations and laws and mandates, the single-issue board member may walk-in thinking his or her life on the Board of Education will be a breeze:

"Hey, all I have to worry about is (insert single issue here)! I don't really care about all that policy stuff, and nobody really understands the budget, so I'll just work very hard to keep myself and the rest of the Board focused on my one issue (insert name of issue here)!"

But there, that very last statement is usually the downfall of the single-issue board member; the other board members all have broader horizons, most know policy and policy-making to some degree, and (as they all must) they cannot ignore the pressures of budgets, the tax levy, and those unfunded mandates which all of a sudden become very real and very much alive when you are actually a real-life school board member. Plus, surprise (actually, BIG SURPRISE!) many or even all of your fellow board members MAY NOT AGREE WITH YOU OR (INSERT NAME OF SINGLE ISSUE HERE)!

Then one day, maybe midway through the first of your three years on the Board, your single issue, (insert name of issue here), is settled! Maybe your viewpoint has prevailed (perhaps Common Core Assessments will disappear forever by legislative fiat); or maybe some court comes down like a ton of bricks against "opting-out" (forcing you and the movement to surrender or die). Either way, your single issue is decided for once and for all, but now you have two years left to serve, and you are not interested in the meat and potatoes or the nuts and bolts of your position as a Board Trustee. Next thing anybody knows, people are scrambling to enlist enough candidates to fill-out the board seats coming open at the next election, due to lack of any burning desire or real interest in the governance of your school district, that whole ball-of-wax, so to speak.

The other thing, purely personal on the part of the single-issue board member, is this silly foolish feeling you may get once you realize you had been on the wrong side of your single issue all along; or, that their initial lack of enthusiasm for your single issue by the other board members has morphed into animosity and isolation toward you, or engenders more serious factionalization and discord among the board as a whole; or, someone hands you a School Law Book with three chapters flagged for your attention, and you quickly realize that, despite your ardor for (insert name of single issue here) the law is stacked against your clever proposed solution to (instert name of single issue), and your big idea is not a new idea, and not a viable idea, and you really, really wish you had known this...before you ran as that single-issue candidate, last year!

Got issues? Bring 'em!

Chris Wendt