West Greene School District changing how school board members elected
After a seven-year experiment with at-large seats, the West Greene School District will be returning to having all seats on the nine-members board elected by region.
In a hearing Monday, Greene County Judge Jeffry Grimes granted the district’s petition to gradually replace the three at-large seats on the board with ones representing three regions of the district.
Currently, two board members come from each of the district’s three regions: Morris and Richhill townships; Aleppo, Jackson, Springhill, Freeport and Gilmore townships; and Center and Gray townships. Voters in those regions are limited to the candidates who are running there, while at-large candidates can receive votes from any region within the district.
The district had turned to the at-large seats in 2018. Chad Scott, a member and past president of the district’s board of directors, said a losing candidate in one region may have had more votes than a winning candidate in another.
By switching one board seat per region to at-large, the board hoped to create more opportunities for people from each region who wanted to serve, Scott said.
It didn’t work out in practice. To maximize their chances, candidates wound up running for both regional and at-large seats.
“When it came down to it, it seemed like we are actually appointing more people now under this hybrid structure than we were at the fully regional structure,” Scott said.
At-large board members will continue serving through the end of their terms, when the regional positions will go on the ballot.
The district is also redrawing the regions to create equal representation, said board President Randall Kennedy.
Two of the positions will be converted to regional with the 2027 elections, and the final one will become regional in 2029, Scott said.
Board members had voted in favor of submitting the petition to the court.
No members of the public spoke against the change at Monday’s hearing.
“The petition, I think, speaks for itself,” Grimes said. “I’m not going to require anything further, since there’s no opposition to it.”
Grimes suggested adding language to the petition clarifying that future elections would be for regional seats, which the district’s solicitor planned to submit to the court Monday afternoon.