Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304180099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BALANCE ON BOARD DEBATED
Six of the seven adults setting policy for Roanoke's schoolchildren don't have any of their own.Kids in school, that is.
Should they?
As the time draws near for City Council to select two of five applicants for the School Board, some say it is also time to balance the board's perspective with more parental input. Council will interview all five applicants at its April 29 meeting.
Others, however, say parents might skew the board's decisions by pushing only for programs that would benefit their own children.
Yet Roanoke's School Board stands out across the state and even the nation in its lack of parental membership.
A demographic profile of school board members compiled by the National School Boards Association reports the majority have one or more children in the nation's public schools. In Virginia, 90 to 95 percent of school board members have or have had children in school, according to the Virginia School Boards Association.
In Roanoke, only one member - J.M. "Jay" Turner Jr. - sends a child into the city's schools each morning. Another member's children are too young to attend school, while others have children who are too old. One member - Chairman Finn Pincus - has no children at all.
"I think you need to have some people on the board who have children," said Pincus, who has applied for a second term.
But not all.
As former director of ECPI Computer Institute and a candidate for a doctorate in educational administration, Pincus said the kind of experience he brings to the board is equally as important as the lessons of parenthood.
"People need to realize that we're talking about a business," he said. "Our budget is $70 million, and if we don't have people on the board who have business experience, and hopefully education experience, then we're in trouble."
The board is in trouble, all right, said Patricia Witten, who also has applied for the position. A former Central Council PTA president, Witten fears the board will lose touch with parental concerns if it doesn't count more parents among its members.
Endorsed by Roanoke's PTA Central Council, Witten is the only applicant with a child in the city school system. Her daughter, Pam, is a junior at Patrick Henry High School.
Parenthood alone doesn't qualify a person for the School Board, Central Council President Marsha Ellison said. But it helps.
"Parents," Ellison said, "have firsthand knowledge of the schools."
Parents hear from their children at the dinner table, Turner said. They speak to the teachers on a regular basis. They see what their children are learning when they help them with their homework.
"If you have children in school, you will have a better sense of what's happening in the schools," Turner said.
And, he said, other parents are more likely to speak to a board member whose children go to school with theirs.
But not everyone thinks School Board members need to be parents to know what's going on.
"More important than having children in the school system is that you have an open mind and a willingness to do your homework," said Gary Waldo, director of the Roanoke Education Association.
His group endorses Pincus and Charles Day, the board's vice chairman, who has also applied for a second term. Day's children are grown.
"We like there to be a variety of people on the board," Waldo said.
And there has been. Over the past several years, the School Board has seen much turnover as some members have left at the end of their three-year terms and others have been replaced.
When William White left the board in 1990 for a seat on City Council, four of the seven members had children in the school system, he said. White doesn't see a need to bring the numbers back up.
"I don't see us trying to find somebody today who has children in the school," he said.
In fact, not having children in the system might be an advantage because it prevents School Board members from showing favoritism, Waldo said.
Turner doesn't see it that way.
He said he has never had a problem being objective. He even voted against funding the Middle School Scholars program two years ago, despite his daughter's involvement.
The vote created no conflicts for him on the board, Turner said. But the environment at home was a different story.
"It did make it a little tense," he said.