Martha Ross has been on the school board for seven years (appointed 2001, first elected 2003) and is now starting her second five-year term after being reelected earlier this year. During that time, she ran for vice president of the board three times unsuccessfully. At that time, you had to serve as vice president before you could be considered for president.

Then the board decided in 2006 to change the rules — they took away the requirement that a candidate for president had to have previously served as vice president. That opened the door for David Gorenz (appointed to the board in 2004 to fill Vince Wieland’s seat after Wieland moved to Dunlap, first elected 2005) to run for president, but it also opened the door for four other board members, including Ross. So Ross challenged Gorenz for the presidency. Gorenz won, 5-2. Only Alicia Butler and Martha Ross voted for Ross for president. Then Butler nominated Ross for vice president. Ross won the vice presidency. In 2007, Gorenz and Ross were elected president and vice president, respectively, once again.

So this year, Ross and Gorenz are running for president of the school board for the third time. The election of officers is on the agenda for tonight’s board meeting. So the question is, who’s the better candidate?

My two cents: I’m not impressed with either candidate, frankly.

During Gorenz’s presidency, (a) $877,500 worth of property was purchased on Prospect Road that the district does not need and can ill afford; (b) well over a half million Title I dollars were spent on items disallowed under federal rules; (c) alarming internal control problems brought to light by independent audit reports have gone uncorrected for two years; and (d) in the face of schools not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP), Gorenz has supported shortening the school day of primary school students. Not a good track record, in my opinion. Despite all these serious problems, Gorenz continues to support Superintendent Hinton and Treasurer Cahill.

Ross, however, is not much better. She votes against every expulsion. She voted in favor of shortening the school day, which will arguably hurt students in her voting district more than any other. She appears to have an entitlement mentality about being president; when she ran for president the first time, she was quoted in the paper as saying (emphasis mine), “I know I’m qualified to be president, and I would do a good job and just feel like, you know, it’s my turn.” She has exhibited a lack of maturity in dealing with conflict. I’ll cite a couple of examples of that last one: (1) When the board voted for Gorenz for president the first time and she was nominated for vice president, she abstained from voting for herself in protest of not being elected president; (2) When the board decided to hire William Salzman as principal of Manual High School in 2004, Ross walked out of the meeting in protest. This doesn’t instill me with much confidence in her ability to lead or manage conflict.

Despite all these shortcomings, and despite my lack of enthusiasm for either candidate, the bottom line is that Ross does have more experience on the board than Gorenz, she is qualified to be president, and Gorenz has not distinguished himself as any more capable to steer the ship than Martha. I think she should get the nod.

UPDATE: As Emtronics pointed out, the purchase of properties on Prospect happened just before Gorenz became president, around the second quarter of 2006. At that time, Alicia Butler was still president. I stand corrected. Even though it wasn’t on his watch as president, it’s worth noting that it was reported at the time that “Board members Dave Gorenz, Garrie Allen and Sean Matheson said they weren’t uncomfortable with the purchases.”

UPDATE 2: Gorenz was elected on a 4-3 vote. Spangler, Stowell, and Wolfmeyer voted for Gorenz. Butler and Parker voted for Ross. Debbie “It’s Not My Job To Meet With My Constituents” Wolfmeyer was unanimously elected vice president.