Should school employees be permitted to sit on the School Board of Education? This is a question that has been on my mind since 2007. That was when school custodian Sherri Jorgenson was elected to the District 22 school board. Then again in 2009 Bea Twiss (the wife of a school teacher in District 22) was elected to the school board. I have nothing but respect and compassion for these two women, and completely believe that they have nothing but the best intentions for the students within the district.
But I continue to wonder just how effective they can be when every day they (or their husband), have the superintendent (H. Terry Ebert) as their boss; but on that one night of the board meeting, they are the superintendents’ boss. Can they really vote in favor of some issue, (even when it is in the best interest of the students or teachers), when they know that the superintendent is opposed to the issue?
As an example suppose that the majority of teachers in the district deserve a pay raise. If the superintendent didn’t think the teachers needed a pay raise, then the school employee who is also a school board member would be in direct opposition to the superintendent. Will they still vote for the pay raise, when their very jobs could be on the line?
This year Sherri Jorgenson and 10 other district 22 custodians lost their jobs when the superintendent decided that he should contract out the custodial function. Sherri was excluded from the vote (and so was every single member of the public that she represented) and she was completely unable to do or say anything regarding the decision to contract out this function; not to mention her job.
The year before, both Bea Twiss and Sherri Jorgenson were unable to stop a salary freeze for all District 22 staff. District 22 teachers already are the lowest paid teachers in El Paso County. They both actually decided to vote in favor of the salary freeze, because they were lead to believe that there was a shortage of funds (something the superintendent told them), only later did it come out that there was over $600,000 available and not spent during the school year.
This year there are two school district employees running for the District 22 school board. One is a coach/teacher, and one is a substitute teacher (Donte’ Stewart and Justina Brownewell). I completely believe that these individuals want to help with the education of our students, but I just can’t believe that they will be completely independent because they work for the very individual that they may need to vote against. Their very jobs could be in question, and should they be dismissed, then who will be selected to take their places on the school board? The voters would not be given any choice, but the remaining members of the school board will make that decision.
We have serious problems with the quality of education being provided in District 22. The CSAP scores are among the lowest in the state; the teacher retention is poor; the way tax payer dollars are used is in question. I don’t believe we can risk the future of our children’s education by having school district employees on the board. There will always be a conflict of interest between what they may want to do, and what they are allowed to do and still keep their jobs. Even if they did not get dismissed, their job performance ratings could suffer, and limit their opportunities for future employment with another district.
