Uncontested Elections for School Boards in Alamo Heights ISD and North East ISD

Children lose when school board elections are uncontested because it takes away an opportunity for public discussion about what the districts need to do to improve. Only election day—May 5, 2018—volition come up and go with no school board elections in either Alamo Heights ISD or North East ISD San Antonio. In every race, either the incumbents or the challengers accept withdrawn. These have effectively become appointed schoolhouse boards. At that place will be no opportunity for a dialogue or contend about the direction of policy, and voters will not accept a chance to evaluate the candidates.

Hither is a timeline of how these unopposed races unfolded. On February 20, the Express-News reported that there would be contested races for both the Alamo Heights ISD and N East ISD school boards. (This earlier postal service gives an overview of school boards in the San Antonio surface area.) And then, on February 23, the Limited-News reported that several candidates for the North E ISD school board had withdrawn, leaving no contested elections. On Feb 26, the North East ISD board cancelled the election and certified the unopposed candidates. On February 27, I got an email from Brett Beach-Kimball that he had withdrawn from the race for the Alamo Heights ISD school board, and the Express-News reported it on March 1.

So, how did nosotros go from having a whole agglomeration of schoolhouse board elections in these districts to having none? Let'south wait at the circumstances in Alamo Heights ISD and North East ISD.

No Contested School Board Elections in Alamo Heights ISD in 2018

Iii seats on the Alamo Heights ISD schoolhouse board are up for ballot in 2018:

• Place 5, held by Bonnie Giddens
• Identify 6, held by Lisa Krenger
• Place vii, held past Perry Shankle

As of this writing, none of these elections are contested. Brett Beach-Kimball filed to run for Place 5, only withdrew his candidacy near 2 weeks later.

The benefit for the district of having uncontested races is that they don't demand to concord an election, which would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Simply at what cost? Voters will non take an opportunity to participate in the option of the school board this year.

If everything were perfect in Alamo Heights ISD, that might non affair, simply the commune is in a time of transition. Concluding year, voters approved a bond that volition brand over many of the districts' campuses; I wrote a commentary forRivard Report almost the imminent demolition of my neighborhood playground. Superintendent Kevin Chocolate-brown is leaving this summer to go the executive director of TASA, so the district volition soon undertake an important search for a new superintendent.

The accomplishment gap is a persistent trouble at Alamo Heights ISD. As noted in the District Improvement Program for 2016–17, testing revealed achievement gaps amongst "Hispanic, economically disdavantaged [sic], ELL TELPAS operation and ELL SpecEd TELPAS." (p.half-dozen) The TEA'southward 2017 school report cards for the district and its campuses (Cambridge, Woodridge, Inferior Schoolhouse, and High Schoolhouse) show relatively high scores for Student Accomplishment and College Readiness, only relatively depression scores for Student Progress and Endmost Accomplishment Gaps. (Expect under the hood: In a  2016 study on the methodology backside the A–F ratings, folio C-6 explains that the Closing Achievement Gaps measure is based on test scores of economically disadvantaged students. At page D-5, see that Alamo Heights ISD campuses earned grades of D, C, F, F, and F in that domain.)

Embankment-Kimball and I met to discuss why he ran for Alamo Heights ISD schoolhouse board. He is a former teacher who taught in a traditional public school in Donna, Texas, and wants to serve his community in the field of education. He favors collaboration between public lease schools and traditional public schools, especially when charter schools tin can experiment and and so share what works with traditional schools. He is concerned that Alamo Heights ISD is non doing enough to deservedly educate all of its students, regardless of their family income, and to shut the achievement gap within its own pupil torso. Also, he wants to raise the level of college readiness among Alamo Heights Loftier Schoolhouse graduates so that they are well equipped to succeed at selective colleges and universities.

Why did Beach-Kimball withdraw from the race for Alamo Heights ISD schoolhouse lath? Once he learned that Place v was not an open seat, merely that Giddens was in fact running for reelection, he realized that the conversation would modify. It would not be nigh problems like college readiness and educational equity, just would instead be well-nigh Beach-Kimball equally a person and the choices his family has made. His children practise non attend school in Alamo Heights ISD, and therefore he has not served on the boards of organizations like the campus PTOs or the Alamo Heights School Foundation. He is nonetheless concerned nigh issues like the superintendent search and figuring out how to engage all families well, and he is looking for other means to exist involved also serving on the school board.

So, there will not exist any contested elections for Alamo Heights ISD schoolhouse lath in 2018. That'due south a shame, because an ballot is an opportunity to take a public conversation about how to improve the district. Without that opportunity, concerned citizens will need to expect for other ways to stand up for the children who nourish schools in the district.

No Contested School Board Elections in North Eastward ISD in 2018

Three seats on the North Eastward ISD school board are upwardly for election in 2018:

• Commune 2, held by Edd White
• Commune 3, held by Joseph Treviño
• District 7, held past Brigitte Perkins

Incumbent White withdrew after Terri Williams filed for District 2. (Williams had just recently withdrawn from consideration for the lath of CPS Free energy.) Daniel McGinty and Lisa Talley filed for Commune iii but withdrew, leaving Treviño unopposed. (Small world: I recently met Treviño at the Long-Range Program coming together and saw him again at the District 121 candidate forum.) After Sandy Winkley filed for Commune 7, incumbent Perkins withdrew.

The stop result of this game of musical chairs is that none of the three seats on the North East ISD school board has a contested election. The board seats are effectively being filled by date, and the voters accept no say at all.

Michele Brown is a communications skillful by trade, and is the proud parent of two students who attend schools in North E ISD. I asked her how she felt almost the uncontested school lath races, and I got an earful.

"We are engaged parents, nosotros show up at parent nighttime—in fact I was the Only parent that showed up to encounter the physics teacher at my student's high school. Nosotros volunteer on PTA. We know the principals at both of the schools where our kids are students and read their weekly emails. We email teachers and set up conferences when information technology is necessary. I follow NEISD on Facebook. I have their app. If you ask my kids, I spend too much time on the Parent Portal. I get the Superintendent's messages via email. Thanks to the NEISD email blasts which include beautifully shot videos, I can tell you what show is at NESA . . . and my kids don't even become at that place. I get a quarterly district newsletter mailed to my house. I have received multiple emails soliciting PTA board positions.

"I share all this to say non One time accept I seen these advice channels used individually, or in a strategic communications effort, soliciting for school board positions, deadlines, or details. Not once did I see it communicated that two long-time board members (including the one in my district) decided to retire and all merely one unmarried candidate in each single member district backed out. Nor was the legal notice posted anywhere merely the board side of the district site. Despite all the ways I receive communications from the district, I learned all of this from a story in the Express-News."

Brown recently wrote to her school board member about the district's policy on student protests. She got a reply dorsum from the superintendent, merely nothing from her school lath member. (Similarly, my inquiries to Alamo Heights ISD board member Giddens were referred to the superintendent; I have yet to get a response.)

Brown observed that the district appears to be doing the legal minimum to post notices on its website. "But in a commune which both the board and district goals include civic engagement, doing the absolute blank minimum is not exactly the path to community date and transparency."

No Election, No Debate, No Conversation

On election day, May 5, voters in Alamo Heights ISD and North Eastward ISD will have nothing to practise. By winnowing each race to a unmarried candidate for each board seat and cancelling the elections, the school boards of Alamo Acme ISD and North East ISD have taken abroad the opportunity for voters to have a say in how their schools are governed. Argue has been closed before it fifty-fifty began, and constituents' concerns are not being heard past board members who feel secure in their positions. In these districts, there is work to be done to close the achievement gap and to appoint all families in the learning surround. Without a lively and sincere discussion about modify, the children who attend schools at that place will suffer.

Read more:

• "Alamo Heights ISD cancels election after candidate withdraws," Silvia Foster-Frau, San Antonio Express-News, March 1, 2018
• "Dropped bids leave NEISD without contested board races", Lauren Caruba, San Antonio Limited-News, February 23, 2018
• "Incumbents draw challengers on Bexar County school boards," Lauren Caruba and Alia Malik, San Antonio Express-News, February 20, 2018

tasmanboyour.blogspot.com

Source: https://sachartermoms.com/uncontested-elections-school-boards-alamo-heights-isd-north-east-isd-san-antonio/

Share this post