School & District Management

Citing Imbalance, Judge Stops School Board Election in Pa.

By Robert C. Johnston — November 10, 1999 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

As voters across the country went to the polls last week, residents of the Connellsville Area School District in southwest Pennsylvania who planned to vote in the local school board election had to stay home.

U.S. District Judge Donald J. Lee of Pittsburgh late last month canceled the election for five board seats. Judge Lee stopped the election as part of a ruling in a 1998 lawsuit claiming that the populations of the three regions from which the board’s nine members were elected were unbalanced and violated the one-person, one-vote federal standard for elections.

The number of voters in each of the three board regions ranges from 16,137, to 1,969, to 8,610. The seven plaintiffs in the case asked the judge to cancel last week’s election if the district failed to reapportion the voting districts by Election Day.

Calling the disparities “intolerably large,” Judge Lee in the Oct. 27 ruling granted the plaintiffs’ request to cancel the election and also nullified the primary for the 6,250-student Connellsville district, which covers 226 square miles of mostly rural, mountainous terrain.

‘A Total Mess’

School officials had submitted three reapportionment plans since August 1998 to a Fayette County court. It rejected all three because they relied on conflicting population estimates or dated sources.

Local school officials are wondering what will happen Dec. 6, when the terms of the five members who were vying for re- election are set to expire.

“The school district will shut down if the judge doesn’t do something,” Kevin Lape, an incumbent who was running unopposed for a third term on the board, said last week. “It’s a total mess.”

Superintendent Gerald Browell said he was awaiting an order from the judge to have representatives from both sides meet to discuss a way out. He, too, expressed concern about how the district would run if the terms of the five members expired before any resolution.

But Marvin D. Snyder Jr., the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said concerns about shutting down the school system were premature. He said the school board would have options to avert a crisis, such as the authority to fill vacancies. Besides, he added, the courts could extend the terms of the current board.

The threat of a district shutdown is “a scare tactic,” Mr. Snyder contended.

As for possible outcomes, Mr. Snyder said an at-large election would be an acceptable short- term solution for his plaintiffs, who come from the most populous voting district. Eventually, he wants regions to have an even distribution of voters.

Mr. Lape, who represents a sparsely populated area, said at-large elections would leave outlying areas underrepresented."I’m not going to campaign over 226 square miles for this position.”

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the November 10, 1999 edition of Education Week as Citing Imbalance, Judge Stops School Board Election in Pa.

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Opinion A Good Principal Knows When It's Time to Leave
I didn’t leave my job because of burnout; I stepped away from being a school leader because it was in everybody’s best interest.
Matthew Ebert
4 min read
Conceptual illustration of someone handing off a baton to someone else over a completed puzzle.
Vanessa Solis/Education Week via Canva
School & District Management Principals Tell Politicians on Capitol Hill: We’re Burning Out
Students' mental health top principals' growing list of concerns.
6 min read
People walk outside the U.S Capitol building in Washington, June 9, 2022.
Visitors walk outside the U.S Capitol building in Washington on June 9, 2022.
Patrick Semansky/AP
School & District Management Women Superintendents Experience Bias on the Climb to Leadership
Interpersonal slights and inequities make it hard for women to land the job and stay in it.
3 min read
Woman stands in front of a staircase in different colors. She is about to walk up the stairs. Concept of standing in front of a challenge and finding the right solution and courage to move on.
mikkelwilliam/E+
School & District Management Fewer of Today's Superintendents Are at Retirement Age
A new survey of superintendents adds to what we know about the people who lead the nation's school districts.
4 min read
Conceptual illustration of money, salaries and data.
iStock/Getty