Log In | Become a Member

Orange Voters to Choose Florida's First Elected School Board Chair

August 18, 2010 -- This election year, the eyes of Florida's education community will be on Orange County. Voters there will be choosing the state's first elected school board chair.

Click here to listen to the story.     Article continues below.

School Board Chair Candidates

Orange County School Board Chair Candidates Homer Hartage, Leona Rachman, and Bill Sublette prepare to tape their debate at the WMFE studios.

 

Right now, there are seven Orange County school board members, elected from individual districts.  They choose a chair from among themselves.

Two years ago, county residents voted to create the additional position of a school board chair who would be elected countywide. At the time, many school board members and other local leaders opposed the idea.  The board even sued to try to block the measure.

Among the skeptics was former Orange County Commissioner Homer Hartage.  He was concerned because the new chair would get a tie-breaking vote on the board.

“It creates a situation where there are 8 members instead of 7.  When that happens, it creates a super-vote for the chairman,” he said during a recent debate at the WMFE studios.  “I thought that in the wrong hands, that would go against the democratic process.”

Now that the position exists, however, Hartage believes his are the right hands.  Hartage is one of three candidates running for the new post.

Another contender, teacher and former charter school operator Leona Rachman, was also opposed to the elected chair idea at first.

“But I also believe with Mr. Hartage that this position is going to require someone who knows what they’re doing,” she said at the WMFE debate, “and has no personal interest in this position other than improving the educational system.”

Rounding out the field is the one candidate who championed the creation of an elected chair, former State Representative Bill Sublette.

“I think that this position will elevate the profile of the school board,” he said during the debate, “I think it will bring more openness and transparency and accountability to the school board, and I think that’s why the majority of Orange County voters supported it.  They want accountability on the Orange County School Board.”

One of the stickiest issues for the new chair will be how to balance the budget. Right now the district says it will face a $90 million funding cliff when federal stimulus money runs out next year.

Bill Sublette is not buying it.  He says education has taken relatively small hits over the past three years, despite dire warnings each year about devastating cuts.

“We’ve got to stop being alarmist and being Chicken Littles and claiming the sky is falling until we know what kind of budget crisis we have.  But I will say this,” he said, “if we have a funding cliff occur, where we’re talking nine-figure cuts – by that I mean a hundred million or more – any candidate who tells you they can address that by simply addressing waste and inefficiency, I think is being disingenuous.”

He was referring to Leona Rachman’s promise not to cut any teaching or support positions, and instead to find other ways to trim the budget.

“We can maybe consolidate buildings and things where we have lots of people in different learning communities,” Rachman said. “I’m going go through the budget, I’m going to analyze it, and I’m going to eliminate the wasteful spending.”

Homer Hartage said he would not take any possible cuts off the table right now.

“I’ll look for ways to adjust the budget to make sure that our students don’t suffer when we make these cuts,” he said.  “I don’t want them to suffer by not having access to the proper classes, not being able to graduate on time.”

One of the biggest issues facing the new school board chair will be the selection of a superintendant to replace Ron Blocker.  Blocker is retiring at the end of the 2011-2012 school year, after a decade on the job.

Sublette and Hartage have very different ideas about the process of finding his successor. Sublette wants much of the decision-making to lie with a committee including business people, minorities, education advocates, and others in the community.

“We’ve got to do more than just make a show of it,” he said. “We’ve got to let that group have a say in the actual selection.  We have to task that group, including school board members, with interviewing the candidates and winnowing it down to the finalists and then picking, with the assistance of that community, an individual that this entire community supports.”

Hartage disagrees with that idea.

“I believe it’s an executive decision.  That means that the school board and the superintendant and the school administration have the responsibility to select someone that meets the objectives of our school system,” he said.  “We do count on the community to give us input as to what they want, but when it comes to making that decision, they voted us to do that.”

Leona Rachman responded, “This is the first time, but I agree with both Homer Hartage and Bill Sublette because I think we need to do a little bit of both.”

Rachman also emphasized the importance of community input in the process.

All registered voters in Orange County can cast ballots in the nonpartisan race for School Board Chair.  If no-one gets more than 50 percent support next Tuesday, the top two candidates will go on to a runoff in November.

PROGRAM NOTE:

You can hear the full debate with Homer Hartage, Leona Rachman, and Bill Sublette Wednesday at 6:30pm and Saturday at 7:30am on “Ballot 2010: An Intersection Special.”

Click here to find an extended version of their debate on our Ballot 2010 website.

 

All active news articles