Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Mayor candidate vies for school board
David Bohardt
It was pretty interesting to learn Monday that former mayoral candidate David Bohardt wants to join the school board. Bohardt was one of seven applicants for Clayton Luckie’s open board seat and part of an applicant pool that was pretty strong — certainly much stronger than the sorts of applicants the board was getting seven years ago when I first began covering the district.
Bohardt is easily the highest profile person to seek a school board post in at least a decade. The increasing quality of folks who are interested in the board is a good sign by itself that more thoughtful people are paying attention to the city schools and have more faith that the district can do better.
The candidate list brought a few questions to mind:
1. Will Bohardt get the job?
He’s certainly a strong candidate who is well connected, knows the city and has an appreciation for the important role the district plays in the success of the city and the region, even if he does not have an education background. Still, this decision is not cut and dried. There are at least a couple other strong candidates also with interesting experience and perspective that could be useful to the board.
Another question is whether Gail Littlejohn will view Bohardt as a potential ally or as a potential rival. Bohardt would be another strong-minded personality who already tangled with the board on the issue of historic preservation of old schools in the past.
2. How will the board dynamic change?
In 2001, Littlejohn and three allies took over total control of this board and began running the show their way. Fortunately for them, the rest of the board was open to their ideas and all seven members were generally in step through 2005, a remarkably harmonious period for what had frequently been a divided school board prior to 2001.
But since last year, four board members have left, including two of Littlejohn’s 2001 Kids First team. Doniece Gatliff lost to Joe Lacey in last fall’s election, robbing Littlejohn of her best friend on the board and adding to the board a member who has occasionally challenged Littlejohn on the issues.
Then Tony Hill and Tracy Rusch moved out of state. Hill was replaced by Lee Massoud, an experienced financial manager who now heads the board’s finance committee. Stacy Thompson took Rusch’s place. The two have generally been in step with Littlejohn’s approaches to the issues.
Luckie was independent-minded but worked fairly well with Littlejohn. His departure means a majority of the board will soon be newcomers who have served less than two years — Massoud, Lacey, Thompson and the new board member.
Littlejohn clearly still leads the board. Yvonne Isaacs is a close ally and Mario Gallin also is generally supportive. Even with the changes, finding four votes won’t be too difficult too often. But her hold over the board also is clearly diminished. Depending on who fills Luckie’s spot, there’s at least the potential for less harmony when the issues get hot.
3. Should a teacher be on the board?
When I started covering the district in 1999, the board had three ex-teachers. Now it has none. Not that there’s anything magical about having a teacher on the board. In fact, many critics felt the teachers on the 1999 board added little value. Still, an informed ex-teacher recently removed from the classroom certainly ought to bring some valuable perspective that could be useful for the board.
There are two ex-teachers among the six applicants this time. There’s also a lawyer who just graduated the district as a top student 1999. It will be interesting to see who the board chooses. Stay tuned.
(Image credit: DDN file photo)
UPDATE: There is a seventh applicant for Dayton school board that I inadverdantly left out of Tuesday’s story — John Wardell is self employed in public relations and has applied for open school board positions in the past. He ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign for school board last year. I’ve updated this post to include him in the numbers.
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