With the 2018 election cycle already approaching, some people are looking to change the way the community votes on a local election: the school board.
A petition has begun to circulate on social media to update the seat boundaries for the Monroe County Community School Corporation School Board.
The boundaries have allegedly not changed since 1996, according to the Community Committee for Educational Equity. The committee is circulating the petition on change.org and working to propose an update on the school governance plan that would have control over the boundaries.
Committee member Deborah Myerson said the zones are now disproportionate because there has not been an update in so long.
“Zones are wildly different in how many people live in those zones," Myerson said. "There’s a basic inequity of being able to draw candidates. Some have 22,000 people living in them. Some have 10,000.”
Sue Wanzer, a current school board member, said zone boundaries can also affect who can run for a school board seat.
She said there is a concern for some smaller districts, particularly districts bordering IU campus that have more student population who would not vote or run for these offices. This causes fewer people from those districts to run.
She said the county redrew these voting precinct districts about six or seven years ago to make them more equal in size, but it made the lines less equal for school board seat zoning.
"If the precinct line cuts say, the Perry 24 zone in half, it gets confusing to people," Wanzer said. "I believe it's not quite as transparent to people to know which school board zone they're in."
Myerson said that in an election cycle, there are typically three or four seats up for election and that there is usually one seat that is uncontested.
"To me, that's an indication that there's part of the school board that's not working," Myerson said.
MCCSC examined the question of changing the school board zone boundaries in 2013. The vote went 4-3 against reviewing a motion to revise zone changes at that time.
Wanzer brought up the question in 2013. The school board defeated the motion four years ago, after deciding there were other issues that needed to be addressed more.
"They didn't think it was worth the effort," Wanzer said.
The committee is bringing up the issue again after failing to revise the boundaries in 2013. It is requesting that the school board of trustees vote yes to begin the process of updating the school board governance plan.
She said the movement seems even more organized this time around.
"This is grassroots democracy," Wanzer said. "Our community sees a need. They've identified an issue, organized everyone together and address the board."
Wanzer said people in the community were upset after the issue was defeated, and so these community members began talking more about how to provide more equity in the school corporation.
These conversations led to the discovery that citizens can petition the board.
Myerson said the goal right now is for the committee to get the MCCSC school board of trustees to put the issue on the agenda for the school board meeting Sept. 26.
To get the issue on the agenda, the school board president and superintendent must put it on there. If that is refused, two board members can ask to put it there.
If that doesn't happen, the committee can address it in the meeting as a public comment.
"I don't believe it takes a lot of effort," Wanzer said. "What we would need to do is look at population totals and then just redraw them."
Should the board vote yes to re-examine the zoning, a committee will review options for modifying the governance plan.
"It starts the process," Myerson said. "It'll still be a twelve-month process to do, but that's the first step."
Do you or anyone you know live in one of these school board zones? We want to hear from you. Reach out at editor@idsnews.com.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated some counties have only one thousand people living in them. Deborah Myerson's quote should have said 22,000. The IDS regrets this error.
