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school board
Elected vs Appointed
School Board
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Over the past several months, the Charter
Revision Commission has been discussing various
proposals, one of which is mayoral appointment of the
School Board in Duval County.
The Duval County School Board unanimously opposes such a
proposal and has provided information to the commission
regarding our district achievements, as well as data and
statistics of the increases that we have seen recently.
Click here to review DCPS Achievements and
Research.
Below are several reasons for our
opposition of an appointed school board:
- School boards in Florida are
governed by the Constitution. Therefore,
an appointed school board would require
a change in the state constitution and
would not have the support from other
school districts. (see
Office of General Counsel’s opinion)
- In order for any governance
structure to remain relevant, gain
credibility and be successful, there
must be opportunities for democratic
engagement and participation by
community partners. School boards
represent the people and are instruments
of state government.
- Important issue is not whether
the board is appointed or elected. It’s
the understanding of the appropriate
role of a board member as one of
governance and policy-making.
- The Duval County School Board
was selected and went through the Broad
Institute/Center for Reform of School
Systems intensive training program. The
training provided a comprehensive theory
of governance that applies effective
governance skills, in the hot political
arena of urban education, to the task of
redesigning urban school districts for
high performance.
- School boards offer support
and balance to mayors in several key
areas including minority representation,
connection to community organizations
and parent leaders.
- An appointed school board does
not remove politics from the board – it
just swaps the people’s politics for one
person’s politics (Mayor).
- Our current budget is as large
as the Mayor’s budget and we have nearly
4,000 more employees than the city,
which would rapidly expand the scope of
responsibility for one person and
potentially dilute the effectiveness.
What is needed to create high-performance urban
school districts that educate all children to high
levels is a strong board-superintendent team, with a
board that provides leadership for reform through
vision, goals, policy and astute politics.
Improving results in academic performance,
graduation rates, career and college readiness, improved
safety and discipline over the last few years show that
our locally elected School Board is able to execute its
strategic plan, and make tough decisions in conditions
of depleted resources.
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