What if you had an election and nobody came?
Then, chances are, you’re running for a school board in Southern Arizona.
Now, saying no one cares is an overstatement, but considering that only two major local school boards — Tucson Unified and Marana Unified — have contested races, and some districts have no candidates at all, I don’t think the hyperbole police are going to come after me.
Serving on a school district governing board is an often thankless job, filled with long meetings, frustrated and vocal constituents, a lot of arcane budget information to tackle. And it’s a volunteer position.
It strikes me, at times, as the self-flagellation position in local government.
So why do it?
Over the 20-plus years I’ve been at the Arizona Daily Star, I’ve covered hundreds of school board meetings, and visited every school district in the area. Some, like Amphitheater Public Schools in the mid-to-late 1990s — when a group of smart and motivated parents confronted board members over real estate deals, the construction of what became Ironwood Ridge High School and the board’s refusal to hear open comments from the public — become mini-dramas.
The group forced a recall election, board members were voted out, some of those parents were voted in and the superintendent resigned.
It was local government in action, and reporting on it was encouraging, and even fun, in a civics nerd sort of way.
Some school boards, like Flowing Wells Unified, which is my go-to model for how to do things right, can work together by keeping their goal of a great education for every child in mind.
Some districts — Vail, Amphitheater, Flowing Wells, Sahuarita, Sunnyside, Tanque Verde and Catalina Foothills —don’t have any challengers, so the incumbents will simply stay on.
Does this mean these boards are doing so well no one thinks they need a change? Maybe. I hope so.
Could it be that nobody wants to put in the time and incredible effort it takes to run for and serve on a school board? Probably.
Even more depressingly, the San Fernando Elementary School District in Sasabe and the Redington Elementary School District in far northeast Pima County have no candidates. Their incumbents aren’t running for re-election, and no one has stepped forward.
The openings will be filled by appointment, chosen by the Pima County Schools superintendent.
Yet in Tucson Unified, the area’s largest district in geography, number of schools and student population, five people are running for two spots in November. Two of them, Adelita Grijalva and Michael Hicks, are incumbents.
And TUSD, by anyone’s measure, is the most dysfunctional board. Arguments and votes get personal quickly, and relationships between some board members are so caustic it’s palpable.
Everyone on the board swears they’re there to help the kids, so I have a proposal:
Let TUSD kids weigh in.
At least give them a chance to listen to the candidates and come to their own conclusions.
Candidates for school board should have to make their case to their largest constituency. And they should take questions not just from kids who are so engaged they’ll attend an evening forum, but kids who spend much of their day in TUSD classrooms, with TUSD teachers and on TUSD playgrounds.
Kids are pretty good at picking up on non-answers and adults trying to duck a question, or offering a lame answer.
They also excel at knowing when adults are pandering to them, trying to use hip lingo to connect with the young people.
Can you dig it?
I think people who run and sit on school boards think they’re doing it for the right reason, to do what’s best for kids. I also think they’re often wrong.
But, hey, they’re there. They’re doing the work. And that’s far more than most of us can say.
