School Board to Study Shift in Elections

In what some trustees see as an opportunity to achieve greater parent participation and to elect more ethnic-minority members, the boards of the San Diego city schools and the San Diego Community College District agreed Monday to study the possibility of changing to district elections.

Meeting in a rare joint session, the boards agreed to look into the path taken recently by the city to have primary and general elections take place in individual districts. Now, a district holds a primary election, and the top two vote-getters go on to a citywide general election.

“It’s easy to lose in your own district and run citywide and win, and that has happened time and time again,” said City Schools Board President Shirley Weber.

Weber and others said neighborhoods with large populations of poor and ethnic-minority persons have felt disenfranchised in a system where large voter turnout in rich, white areas of San Diego generally holds the balance of elections.

Having district elections would encourage voter turnout by giving people in a neighborhood the feeling that they can hold their school board members accountable, said Maria Senour, a member of the Community College District Board.

Senour also favors expanding the number of members on each of the boards from five to seven. A change to district elections and expansion of the boards would both require voter approval.

“It would probably be less effective, but it would probably also be more representative,” since districts would be smaller, Senour said.

But having members accountable only to their districts would discourage trustees from representing the interests of all the students of the city and could lead to infighting among members, said City Schools Board Member Sue Braun.

“I’m thinking of human nature. . . . I think you’d get a different person running if you had district elections,” Braun said.

Both boards are set to address the issue again in June, after their staffs have met to draft a proposal.