Aliyya Swaby Photo
Eidelson, Holmes at the vote.
To run for a seat on New Haven’s reconstituted Board of Education, students will need to get 100 petition signatures from fellow students, including 50 from five different schools other than their own.
That’s the latest consensus as alders fine-tune the rules for converting the Board of Ed from a fully mayorally-appointed body to one including elected members and non-voting student members.
Yale Alder Sarah Eidelson revamped an ordinance governing the process of setting up those elections, in the hopes of making them more democratic and student-involved.
At a meeting of the Board of Alders Legislation Committee in City Hall Wednesday night, alders finally agreed on the details for how the city should move to a partially elected Board of Ed, which has been in the works for months with input from students, board members and other community members. They approved a set of rules which now will go to the full Board of Alders for a final vote.
A 2013 charter revision required the body to become a “hybrid” with four mayoral appointees, the mayor, two members elected by the public and two non-voting student members.
A previous version of the ordinance had a selection committee solicit applications and choose six students to run in the elections. Students would then vote in two of the six to serve for a two-year term after their sophomore years.
The new version, spearheaded by Eidelson and approved Wednesday night, has students file candidacies by submitting a petition with at least 100 students’ signatures, including at least 50 from students at other schools. This process mirrors the way alders file their candidacies, by getting signatures of between 1 and 5 percent of their ward’s constituents. Alders have a week to get those signatures; students would have four weeks, according to the draft ordinance.
Eidelson originally had wanted students to get 150 signatures, but decreased the number after discussion with the other committee members.
Any student able to get the requisite number of signatures will be able to run in the election. A previous, controversial draft had included GPA or attendance minimums for students looking to run.
Instead of a selection committee, an “election committee” will be responsible for coordinating the subsequent election process, with further input from students. That committee will include chairs of the Board of Alders Education and Youth Services committees, two community members chosen by the alder president, two Board of Ed members and member of Mayor Toni Harp’s staff.
Given past feedback, the current draft ordinance allows the alders and Board of Ed members to choose designees to take their places on the committee. Superintendent Garth Harries and Eidelson have said they would consider asking a student to take their seats on that election committee.
Harries said Wednesday evening that the revised ordinance “reinforces the student voice” in the process. He suggested it contain a clause allowing the election committee to take students with the top four number of signatures — just in case 100 signatures proves to be an insurmountable task.
Upper Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen said students should have a chance to “reconvene and speak to” whether the process seems “overwhelming. He said he worried that they would be distracted from their school workload in the attempt to get on the Board of Ed.
Wilbur Cross senior Aneurin Canham-Clyne was the only student to speak before the committee, commending its move from a “selection” to “election” committee. He said a selection committee was “not democratic.”
The petition idea is great,” he said. “You should treat this as any elected position in the city.”
East Rock Alder Jessica Holmes, who chairs the Legislation Committee, said the Board of Ed should coordinate students’ access to campaigning materials, to make the process more egalitarian. Students would serve from Aug. 1 to July 31, in staggered terms. The first year, one rising junior and one rising senior would be chosen, and the senior would serve only one term before graduating. Every year afterward, one rising junior will be chosen to serve a two-year term, meaning one junior and one senior sit on the board each year.
The Legislation Committee Wednesday briefly discussed the process for the public election of two voting members of the Board of Ed. The two new voting members of the Board of Education will be elected in November 2015 to begin the following January — one for a two-year term and the other for a four-year term. After the end of the two-year term in November 2017, the people will vote in a new member to serve a four-year term, ultimately staggering the terms for the members.
The city will be divided into two districts with equal populations. The following wards would constitute Education District One: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 26. The committee Wednesday decided to switch Ward 7, previously in the first district, with Ward 16, previously in the second district.
Holmes said alders had expressed concern with splitting Fair Haven’s Latino vote into different districts and rendering it powerless. Wednesday’s committee moved the placement of Ward 16, in Fair Haven, in the same district as its neighboring wards.
Great reporting! It brings to light a certain Mickey Mouse aspect to the entire charade of the newly "democratic" hybrid board.
The only thing serious about this system is that the two students who win election will be all but guaranteed a City or social service job down the road.