Dr. David Hopson
I will review the so called “one-man/one-vote” issue that should be on the warrants for annual town meetings this spring in the Gateway towns. As most people know, the Gateway Regional School District will be celebrating its 50th year of existence during the 2013-2014 school year. As one may imagine, the towns making up the district have changed dramatically over this time, including the number of people in each town. Other items that have changed in this time are the legal requirements of schools (and as you can well imagine, there are many more requirements now than 50 years ago).
I’m sure that the regional agreement was structured in a way that seemed reasonable to the towns at the time and resulted in a 17 member school committee consisting of either 2 or 3 members elected in each town. But given changes over time, it no longer makes sense to have 3 members from Chester and 2 from Blandford when their populations are now nearly identical.
State Law (M.G.L. Chapter 71, Section 14E) outlines the options for the election of regional school district school committees. After reviewing these with legal counsel, the committee voted to bring forward the option of electing members with residency requirements in district-wide elections to be held at the biennial state elections. In simpler terms, this would result in the following changes to the school committee. (1) The number of members would shrink from the current 17 down to 14, with 2 school committee members from each town. (2) The school committee members representing a town would have to be residents of said town, i.e., only a Huntington resident could be elected to represent Huntington on the school committee. (3) Voters from all 7 towns would be eligible to vote for school committee members from each town, i.e., the Huntington resident who wanted to be on the school committee would be on the state ballot in each of Gateway’s seven towns. (4) The term of office for a school committee member would change from the current 3-year term to a 4-year term. (5) Appointments made to fill school committee positions due to resignations or other reasons would now last until the next state biennial election rather than the next yearly town election.
As an amendment to the regional agreement, this requires acceptance from each of Gateway’s seven towns. While there has been much discussion over the past 20 years, and the towns nearly passed a similar amendment, we have worked on this issue fairly consistently (see the information at www.grsd.org under school committee, regional agreements). The reality is that over the years every position on the school committee has not been filled, generally from those towns that are allowed three members. In addition, there have been few real ‘contests’ for election to the Gateway school committee over the years. Thus changing the number of school committee members, and the means by which they are elected, is not likely to have a major impact on the operation of the school committee, or on the people who desire to contribute to the district by serving on the school committee.
