Post by EagleDad on Apr 1, 2007 6:20:32 GMT -6
District 204 School Board Race Canceled
By James Bastion
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Sunday, April 1 2007
The upcoming elections for 3 open school board member seats currently scheduled for April 17th has been canceled and nullified. In an unprecedented move, school district 204 officials have decided not to have public elections for the three open school board member positions.
District Superintendent Howard Crouse, stated "The school board member elections in their current form are too divisive. They tend to pit neighbor against neighbor and they offer little or no entertainment value to the community."
The district is currently finalizing the method that will be used in lieu of public elections to fill the open board seat. "We don't know yet exactly how we will fill the positions", Crouse said, "but, we want it to be a heck of a lot more fun for the community to participate in and watch. We were thinking of either an old fashioned potato sack race, or maybe a game of rocks, paper, scissors."
Officials plan to announce the new way the determine the school board by the end of the week. They have posted 4 plans on the district website, www.ipsd.org. Immediately after posting the plans, two additional plans, plan 5 and plan 6 were added, and within hours, plan 5 was broken into two plans, plan 5a and plan 5b.
"We're looking for community feedback on the best and most entertaining way to select board members" current Board President Jeanette Clark said "We've had a lot of success with internet polls so we are using one to get feedback. We found a lot of residents liked to vote multiple times so we made it even easier and added a field to enter the number of votes you would like to cast."
Local developer Paul Lehman of Macom Corp offered the use of land in the southwest corner if the district does have a potato sack race or some other carnival competition to select board members. "We've got nothing better to do with this empty lot" Lehman said, "I can't give this stuff away, nobody wants to buy a townhome shoved under power lines. When the potato sack race is over, I'm putting this land on eBay."
By James Bastion
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Sunday, April 1 2007
The upcoming elections for 3 open school board member seats currently scheduled for April 17th has been canceled and nullified. In an unprecedented move, school district 204 officials have decided not to have public elections for the three open school board member positions.
District Superintendent Howard Crouse, stated "The school board member elections in their current form are too divisive. They tend to pit neighbor against neighbor and they offer little or no entertainment value to the community."
The district is currently finalizing the method that will be used in lieu of public elections to fill the open board seat. "We don't know yet exactly how we will fill the positions", Crouse said, "but, we want it to be a heck of a lot more fun for the community to participate in and watch. We were thinking of either an old fashioned potato sack race, or maybe a game of rocks, paper, scissors."
Officials plan to announce the new way the determine the school board by the end of the week. They have posted 4 plans on the district website, www.ipsd.org. Immediately after posting the plans, two additional plans, plan 5 and plan 6 were added, and within hours, plan 5 was broken into two plans, plan 5a and plan 5b.
"We're looking for community feedback on the best and most entertaining way to select board members" current Board President Jeanette Clark said "We've had a lot of success with internet polls so we are using one to get feedback. We found a lot of residents liked to vote multiple times so we made it even easier and added a field to enter the number of votes you would like to cast."
Local developer Paul Lehman of Macom Corp offered the use of land in the southwest corner if the district does have a potato sack race or some other carnival competition to select board members. "We've got nothing better to do with this empty lot" Lehman said, "I can't give this stuff away, nobody wants to buy a townhome shoved under power lines. When the potato sack race is over, I'm putting this land on eBay."
