A majority of the members of the Hamilton County Board of Education didn't support a bill signed by Gov. Bill Lee on Friday that allows local school board elections to be held on a partisan basis.
The bill was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly during a special session to fight COVID-19 public health measures, and some lawmakers said partisan labels would remove the guesswork for voters who want to know where candidates stand on issues such as mask mandates in schools.
Before the bill was signed, board members Karitsa Jones, Jenny Hill and vice chair Tiffanie Robinson, who all represent parts of Chattanooga, each told the Times Free Press they disagreed with making school board elections partisan.
"I think political parties have absolutely nothing to do with public education and how we should support our children and ensuring that they get the equitable education they deserve. I think when you bring parties into things like that, it becomes divisive and one-sided," Jones said. "I think we should leave political parties out of education. School board should remain nonpartisan."
Robinson echoed Jones, saying Thursday she opposed partisan races for school board and local elections.
"I specifically am against school board races being required to declare parties. [It] is a huge misstep, and it's a mistake, and it's a path toward really destroying our public education system," Robinson said. "I look at education as the most common asset that everyone has rights to, and I think that putting party politics in place will start to align viewpoints or wants that parties have that shouldn't be associated with education, basically."
Hill said she was against partisan school board races and that compared to partisan races, nonpartisan elections give voters more choice in choosing representation.
"Partisan elections typically yield one or two candidates who have effectively been elected by a very small base of primary voters, whereas nonpartisan elections bring people with ideas who have to be able to serve voters with greatly diverse opinions in order to be elected," Hill said.
In addition to the school board, Hill serves in another elected role on the Chattanooga City Council representing District 2, which contains Lupton City, North Chattanooga and Northgate. She began her term in April.
School board member Marco Perez of Signal Mountain penned a Nov. 1 opinion article titled "The Case for Nonpartisan School Board Races" expressing his desire to keep school board races free of partisanship. He told the Times Free Press that partisan school board races would be a sad direction for the school board to move toward.
"I think our focus as the school board is the students, and I think bringing partisanship to the school board is going to be detrimental and it'll devalue our work tremendously," Perez said.
Board chair Tucker McClendon of East Ridge told the Times Free Press in October that school board elections should remain nonpartisan.
"I think the world we live in right now is so hyper-partisan about literally everything that school boards don't have the pressure of partisan elections and it should stay that way," McClendon said last week. "I think anyone that runs for school board can tell you, you have to have a heart for children, you have to have a heart for education, and I think once you allow that to turn into partisan politics, it opens a gateway for it to be not such a good thing."
However, not everyone on the board was opposed to the idea of allowing political parties into the mix.
Board member James Walker of Birchwood said candidates could run as independents if they did not want to declare party affiliation.
"I think that politics are already in local school boards, statewide, countrywide, and I think it gives another level of getting to know the candidates based on their past record of voting. We're talking about budgets, we're talking about curriculum. I think it's only fair to the community to understand where our candidates come from, and where they stand on those types of issues," Walker said.
Board member Rhonda Thurman of Hixson said she could see both the good and the bad side to the idea of partisan school board elections.
"I just think it would be a way for people to have to declare how they were going to vote on the board, or at least how they felt about school issues to kind of smoke some of them out, because some of them say that they're one thing and then when they get on the board, they're totally, totally something different. I think it would be a good thing in that regard," Thurman told the Times Free Press on Thursday.
"The downside is that you're gonna have to raise so much money to run two elections [a primary and a general], and I'd just hate for school board seats to be so expensive to run for because it just cuts a lot of people who would be really good on the school board out of running and there again, it just makes it for only those who are well connected and can raise money can run, and I don't think that's a good thing."
Board member Joe Smith of Hixson told the Times Free Press on Thursday he was indifferent toward making school board races partisan and that it would not change his approach to making decisions.
"Regardless of what they do with that, I'm going to continue on the same track I've always been on and that's to make decisions based on what I think is in the best interest of 44,000 students," Smith said. "Makes no difference to me whether it's an R or a D."
The law signed Friday by the governor empowers local party officials to request county election officials to hold a party primary for school board seats. Lawmakers originally sought to require all school board elections be conducted on a partisan basis, but after several Republican lawmakers spoke out against the idea, the bill was amended to take a softer position, making partisan elections optional instead.
Contact Anika Chaturvedi at achaturvedi@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592.