School Boards

“In the first place, God made idiots,” Mark Twain wrote. “This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.”

In theory, school boards function as taxpayers’ elected representatives, sworn to oversee the efficient running of the schools.   In theory.

In the years I’ve worked as an administrative secretary, I’ve attended well over a hundred school board meetings.  I’ve heard board members patronize, pontificate, and perjure.  I’ve also watched them sit mutely through public meetings, rubber stamping the agenda according to the administration’s recommendations.  No public discussion.  No explanation for increased spending.  They act as puppets for the administration,  little more.

I once heard that a school board election is one of the easiest to win.  There’s no salary involved, no real perks.  Who would want the responsibility — except a few self-serving sorts with hidden agendas?  He wants to boost his son’s position on the football team.  She wants to raise her community standing, or, even worse, to secure a teaching position for her daughter.  Occasionally there’s the rare altruistic soul who genuinely seeks to control spending, or to raise the quality of the academics but he or she is rare indeed.

In our last school board election, we had no candidates for one seat in the primary.  In the general election, a man got nine friends and family to write in his name.  He didn’t care enough to have petitions signed to run openly in the primary.  But, since no one else was running, he won – with nine write-in votes.  Now he’s on the board.

Countless taxpaying citizens complain about decisions made by the board and administration.  They cry over higher and higher taxes, over ever increasing teacher salaries, and nepotism in hiring.  But unless a coach picks on their son, or if their daughter is suspended — they do not come to board meetings to learn what is happening.  They certainly do not run for school board.  Who does that leave?

Who controls your school district – the school board or the administration?  What are your feelings about school boards?

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