Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Fair Representation?



The Regional School District Planning Board will host a public meeting on December 5 and one overriding concern of Amherst residents is fair representation.  Or at least it should be.

By population Amherst makes up 88% of the current Regional School District (Amherst, Leverett, Pelham and Shutesbury) thus a School Committee of 100 members should have 88 of them calling Amherst home.

But alas it doesn't work that way as the current 9 member Regional School Committee is made up of five from Amherst two from Pelham and one each from Leverett and Shutesbury.  Not even close to that great American concept of "proportional representation."

The current attempt to bring Kindergarden through 6th grade into the mix will be even more disproportional since Shutesbury will not be joining, thus pushing Amherst to over 90% of the proposed Region.

Amherst RSDPB reps: Katherine Appy, Alisa Brewer, Andy Steinberg (Chair)

The make up of the  Regional School District Planning Board already hints at the problem with whatever "plan" they come up with, since the committee was founded with 12 members equally divided between the four towns. 

One (Pelham) member last summer somewhat addressed the potential tail-wagging-the-dog scenario by saying it would "save Amherst from themselves," a thinly veiled (nasty) reference to Catherine Sanderson's tumultuous reign on the Amherst School Committee.

A time when progress was actually being made, but bitterly opposed every centimeter of the way.

The meeting December 5 is not getting nearly the public attention it deserves.  Interestingly the RSDPB hired a PR firm to come up with a "marketing plan" back when they were attempting to fast track a completed plan to the voters by the November elections. 


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Regional School District Planning Board (RSDPB) Thursday, December 5, from 7-9 pm  in the Town Room in Town Hall

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

With the recent antics & tenor of the regional school committee meetings (in Oct & Nov, for example), I'd question why any of the other towns would want to extend their participation in the regional district to K-6.

Anonymous said...

does the RSDPB have an active web site anymore? The regionalschoolplanning.org web address the RSDPB used previously is now defunct, and the RSDPB's google web site (https://sites.google.com/site/regionalschoolplanning/) hasn't been updated in months.

The RSDPB meeting on Dec 5th was only officially posted today. Presumably, and hopefully, now the meeting will get a little more attention.

Anonymous said...

As an Amherst resident, one reason I am concerned about K-6 regionalization is that the information that the RSDPB has presented so far suggests that regionalization will cost Amherst more than we spend on education now, even though the 4-town region overall would save $.

I hope that people will come to the meeting on Dec 5th and to any future RSDPB forums.

Tom McBride said...

I understand the concern but with 12 people what are the chances you're going to come up with equal representation? That's "if" I understand the initial concern correctly.

Larry Kelley said...

Other districts do it by keeping the committee to a normal size but assigning the reps from the larger community a "weighted vote".

In other words if person A represents a town with eight times the population of town B their one vote is multiplied by eight.

Tom McBride said...

Either that, or as in the U.S. House, the number of reps would be based on the number of their students in the district. I'm not sure why the number is exactly 12.

Anonymous said...

to Tom Mcbride,

The RSDPB is a committee to figure out what a new K-6 district would look like in terms of representation, education, funding, etc. They are not going to be the new School Committee for the K-6 region. From your posts it seems that is your impression.

Anonymous said...

It's hard to understand why the hilltowns want to reduce Amhert's voting strength on the regional school committee. That's not fair. What would be their reaction if Amherst wanted to reduce their voting strength?

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:51,
No one is trying to reduce Amherst's voting strength on the regional school committee. Not sure where you are getting that idea.

Anonymous said...

So whatever Amherst says goes. Why have reps from any other towns if their vote means nothing? I see lots of 5-4 votes.

Anonymous said...

All the proposed new regional school committee configurations by RSDPB show reduced, disproportional voting strength for Amherst. Why?

The regional representation systems used by virtually every regional school committee in Mass. are proportional, either by number of school committee members or by weighting the votes of school committee members by the number of town residents.

Why can't we do the same if we go into a new regional school committee?

Janet McGowan

Tom McBride said...

To anonymous 1:35, why shouldn't they have more reps, it's a huge school district and there are only 12 people? Keep the reps they have and get more. If nobody else will volunteer keep it the way it is and live with the results. And my name is spelled with a capital "B".

Anonymous said...

Mr McBride: are you saying that the RSDPB should have more than 12 members? If so, why do you think so? Finally, have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Anonymous said...

By law, the RSDPB has to have 3 members from each town. So there are 12 members, with 9 members from towns that are about 10 percent of the population. Naturally, all their suggestions favor increased voting power for their towns. What doest that do for Amherst?

Dr. Ed said...

Are any of you folks familiar with the so-called Voting Rights Act (which, like Obamacare, has a "real" name) -- and even though SCOTUS tossed out Title IV, there are still four more parts that are still valid law.

Including that part which precludes the "dilution" of minority votes.

Hence not only does Baker v. Carr require each Amherst voter have the same influence as every other voter, but as there are considerably more minority voters in Amherst than S/P/L, its also a VRA violation for Amherst not to have representation on the basis of it's population.

Oh, and as for the current arrangement being "legal" -- when that law was passed a century ago, "White Only" water fountains were also legal -- and they ain't now....

So much for social justice....