George,

I am having a hard time understanding the well-financed push to persuade Charlottesville citizens to elect their school board. When my family, including five young children, first moved to Charlottesville, I tried in a small way to contribute to the community by serving as a League of Women Voters observer of the school board. This experience left me with great respect for the hard work and thoughtful decisions of the school board. Then, as now, it was composed of high-minded volunteers who were paid only token salaries for their enormous expenditure of time and energy.

I can’t imagine most of the best candidates for the job wanting to go door-to-door to get votes. It’s a different breed of cat that does that. In my memory, with the marvelous exception of that great public servant, Emily Couric, people have been appointed who were not looking for a springboard to elected office, but who wanted nothing more than to serve the children, the teachers, the whole community. The time and money required for campaigning for a generally thankless office would just add to the burden, and might well silence some of the most valuable and diverse voices we are able to hear, thanks to the appointive system.

Our process for selecting school-board members has worked well for the 37 years I’ve been unofficially watching. A one-year glitch should not demolish a system that’s gained for our city a reputation and a reality of strong, diverse participation. The Charlottesville public schools continue to cope with ever-changing educational techniques, the miseries of “teaching to the test” requirements, and the demands of constituencies with many diverse needs. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, especially in the differences in children’s achievement, but our school board members conscientiously and doggedly focus on narrowing that gap and evaluating the usefulness of present and proposed policies.

Virginia Germino (electronic mail, November 1, 2005)