MIDLAND, Mich. — Midland Public Schools Board of Education has decided to change the length of its terms from four years to six. The seven-seat board passed a resolution to make the change at last week’s meeting.
“I had gone to a Michigan Association of School Board (MASB) conference and one of the things we talked about in our class was school board terms and there were several different communities and schools that were struggling because four or more board seats would come up for election in one year,” board President Pam Singer told the City Paper. “And when you have seven board seats, that’s a majority and that can create havoc in a school district when you have so many potentially brand new board members.”
Ms. Singer said they discussed how they could situate themselves so that they could have terms that were better staggered. She said that the MASB was suggesting that if they went to six-year terms, which many other districts were, they wouldn’t keep coming across the issue where the majority of their board members had to deal with an election all at the same time.
Four seats will be on the 2020 ballot, with two to remain four-year terms and the other two to become adjusted to 6-year terms. Potential candidates running for a seat will need to choose which appointed term limit they will be vying for.
Ms. Singer cited an instance in Colorado a few years ago where one of the largest districts in the state had a board with four members coming up for reelection at the same time, and several special interest groups organized a push for like-minded individuals to help their own agendas.
“[They] wanted to push their own curriculum or specific books, and they were trying to push that in by getting all their people in line. And that can really create havoc in a district if you have a plan of work for how you’re moving forward and a board that’s been strategic all along,” she told the City Paper. “And then all of a sudden you have special interest groups that come in with their ideas and just wanting to push their agenda or their change, and it can really make a mess of things. And actually in Colorado it did – they went through three or four superintendents in five or six years.”
The City Paper asked in retort at what point does the interest or ideas of voters then outweigh those already in place of the current board.
“The board works for the school district and they work for the community, so it’s very important to have community input,” she said. “Our board needs to always have an ear to our community and if we’re not, then I’d say that we’re not doing our job. In essence, as far as the six year terms I just think that it creates a better system so that we can still have elected board members and their seats and its the community whose weighing in on them and each person who gets in their seat has the same amount of power in their vote than any other member.”
“Their terms are already staggered, but with the election law changes – we can only have board members elected on even years… in the whole State of Michigan, it messed up how the board seats come up,” she said. “That’s why the MASB said, ‘you know what, we know that this is a better way to do this as far as staggering your board members and making sure you don’t have huge turnover.’”
“When they look back at their records and how districts run, they see that districts who have continuity with board members and superintendents who have been there longer then the districts run smoother. And when you don’t have that, that’s when you get into a lot of struggles.”
Ms. Singer said that deciding which two of the four will have a 4-year term and who will have the 6-year will have to be a collaborative process decided amongst the members.
“I thought about this a long time, I talked with the folks at MASB, I contacted our attorney just to talk through what it would mean, what it would look like, just to make sure we had everything just right before the board discussed it and actually voted to make the change,” she said. “So I feel like we did our due diligence and we came up with what we thought was a best practice and a way of moving forward and that’s why we brought it forward.”
The seats on next year’s ballot are those held by Mary Fredell (Treas.), Lynn Baker (Sec.), Scott McFardland (V.P.), and Brad Blasy.
