Guest column: Better school board choices needed

There has been a lot of print recently about the management of the Poway Unified School District. As a 13-year former member of the Board of Education, I’d like to put my oar in the water, not to add any fuel to the ongoing controversy, but to try to provide some notes of caution to the electorate. Perhaps better choices will be made in future elections.

Let me begin by citing the five classic reasons people seek seats on school boards.

1. Revenge: That teacher flunked my kid. I’ll get on the school board and fire him or her. Doesn’t happen. Teachers generally can’t be fired.
2. Visibility for business: A board seat will enhance my business visibility and my profit.
3. Stepping stone to higher office: Jimmy Carter and Bob Filner are examples, but this motive is not necessarily a disqualifier. There are good examples as well. Former state Senator Dede Alpert and county Supervisor Dianne Jacob are two. Only when it’s clear up front that that is the motive should that be a disqualifier because that person’s energies might be focused on the next step up and not on the duties at hand. There has been such a case in the PUSD.
4. Egotism. Name up in lights. I’ll be a big man or woman in my town. Not good.
5. Altruism. The genuine desire to do good for others. This, coupled with modicums of intelligence and good judgment, should be the one and only valid reason for your vote.

Admittedly, the motives of board candidates are difficult to discern and I wish there was a fool-proof method to separate the wheat from the chaff but there isn’t. The process of elimination can help to winnow the list.

First of all, the one who spends the most money, puts up the most signs, puts up the biggest signs may or may not be the right one. Does he or she have a hidden agenda? Why spend so much money?

Being a teacher is not necessarily a qualification. It is not the function of the board to “help run the district.”

Those supported by special interest groups should be weeded out because, surely, payback time will come. Disgruntled former employees, quite obviously, should immediately be weeded out. That was not always the case in the PUSD.

Candidate forums are held but there are not enough of them and they are poorly attended.

The most important function of the board is to hire the most qualified superintendent who can be found at a salary not excessive for the size of the district. Then let him or her run the district in the manner in which they perceive their constituents want it to be run so long as it is in compliance with all laws, mandates and budgetary constraints.

It’s fine for the board to set lofty goals but it’s the teachers and site administrators who implement those goals. They’re the ones who work hard to make it happen. They deserve most of the credit for good student performance.

The recent columns in this newspaper by Dick Lyles have served well to illuminate the problems which voters can bring upon themselves. Somehow they, the voters, must drill down and know more about their choices for their school board. It’s not an easy task but the current situation shows what can happen if they don’t get it right each and every time.

Voters across this country would do well to learn more about those for whom they vote in all elections from school board to the highest office in the land.

As Mark Twain once said, “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”