Letter from city Councilor Craig Minor to the Charter Revision Commission:
Subject: Charter Revision - Elected School Board
Dear Chairman Furey:
I cannot attend the meeting of the Charter Revision Commission in January, so I would like to offer my thoughts on the elected vs. appointed school board issue in writing.
I am on record as being opposed to returning to the appointed school board. However, I do feel that there is room for improvement in the way we elect our school board members. Therefore I suggest the following changes:
1. Keep the number of commissioners at nine, but elect them by council district. Each school board member would have a closer affinity to the schools in his or her district than they do now, and each school would have more direct representation on the school board. Elections would probably be more spirited and issue-oriented since the candidates would be expected to speak to whatever issues are facing the schools in their district. The candidate who tries to fly below the radar would do so at his or her peril.
2. To comply with minority representation requirement, both parties would run two candidates, and the three top vote getters would be seated.
3. Stagger the election of new board members. Set the term at six years, and during each municipal election one council district would elect new school board members. That would provide for continuity as well as "new blood", at the same time.
Thank you for the opportunity to present these comments.
Craig Minor
City Councilmember
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
4 comments:
Since the ONLY ones to have any control over pay / benefit packages are the elected board , history has dramatically shown they can not be trusted to be fair to the public that is paying the bills .
#4 . I also suggest banning teachers ... (former/present/local/out-of-town)from having voting rights on any education associated issues .
Why would you want to ban educators from the process? They are more qualified then the group we have on the BOE now.
They would NOT be banned from the process .... just from the power of voting on their own pay and benefits packages . Were you 'educated' in Bristol ???
Check the background of the current BOE .... You will find they have vested interests in the items they and only they vote on . The public or govt. officials never NEVER get any vote on the excessive salaries in the school system .
conn-man,
Yes, I was educated in Bristol and proud of it. I went on to attend an excellent college and graduated in the top ten percent. I competed (yet competed) with students from all over the country (from excellent school systems) and did all right. So sorry to shock you but the Bristol Educational system did a great job in preparing me (and many like me)for college and the working world. I have been offered jobs all over the country but I believe in all the positives of Bristol. Yes Bristol. It is a great place to live with a fine education system.
Since you are defending the current BOE what in their backgrounds qualify them to oversee a school system and the education of our children? I would prefer an educator over a person with "vested interests" (i.e. politics) any time).
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