Board reform: Time to review school board make-up

With this year's municipal election complete, attention naturally turns to voters' next day with the ballot box in May, when primaries will decide candidates for general election races. Pitt County has the additional responsibility of choosing members for the Board of Education, one of this community's most important governing bodies, which is sure to be passionately contested next year.

Voting for school board membership highlights problems inherent with both the board itself and the election process used to select its membership. Those issues deserve concerted attention in the coming months, and movement toward the reform needed for more efficient, effective and responsive representation.

Since the merger of the county and city schools systems, the Board of Education has included 12 members. That was by design, to assure all residents that their interests would be protected throughout the process of folding the two systems together. But it was also believed that a smaller board would ultimately serve the community more effectively.

That downsizing has yet to occur, decades after the merger. The board remains the second largest in the state, trailing only Mecklenburg County in size, and exceeds even the nine-member Board of Commissioners that controls its budget. School board members also serve six-year terms, which seems excessive when compared to two-year municipal terms or the four years served by county commissioners.

However, a greater problem is the timing of the election. Voters will cast ballots in six races come May, in a nonpartisan election that will determine who holds those seats. But the six members of the board now serving will remain in their seats until December, when their terms expire.

That means a defeated member will retain voting powers for seven months, but can act without the oversight that popular elections provide. While one should reasonably expect that lame ducks who have power will not wield it capriciously, that system seems incongruent with the high-minded ideal of representative democracy.

Reforming these flaws can only be accomplished through legislative action, and the wheels will not begin to turn without pressure from the electorate. Some school board members will agree with altering the system as it exists, and have gone on record in recent elections advocating change. They should now lead the conversation on how best to achieve it.

Citizens need a school board that is more responsive, more efficient and more directly accountable to voters. Those principles should guide the debate, but it is a discussion the community must begin.