Opponents of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s school takeover plan are questioning his appointments to the Board of Education, saying that representation east of the Anacostia River is “unbalanced.”
Fenty has appointed three people to the nine-member board, but only one of those appointees, Tonya Kinlow, lives east of the Anacostia. His other appointees, Laura McGiffert Slover and Ted Trabue, live in wards 3 and 4 respectively. Slover and Kinlow were confirmed by the D.C. Council Tuesday.
Fenty’s legislation comes at a time during which about 45 percent of the District’s 55,000 public school children live east of the river in Wards 7 and 8. Some parents have said they were concerned with the concentration of power on the school board in the school board’s second district, which includes Wards 3 and 4. A special election for the District 2 seat willadd another member from either Ward 3 or 4.
“It’s kind of unbalanced in terms of the number of students east of the river, where they live,” said Board member William Lockridge, whose District 4 seat includes wards 7 and 8.
Still, others question what effect ward representation would really have in the face of Fenty’s proposal to scrap the school board’s policy-setting powers.
Wendy Sefsaf, a co-chair on the Local School Restructuring Team from Stoddert Elementary School who supports Fenty’s takeover, said she doesn’t think areas east of the river will suffer because the system’s problems are “universal” across the board.
Sefsaf said the board is going to change so much it will be hard to predict what directions it will take.
But, Gina Arlotta, a co-founder of the anti-takeover Save Our Schools organization, disagreed.
“With the mayor’s plan, its going to be real critical having real people representing Wards 7 and 8,” Arlotta said. “William Lockridge does a great job but he’s just one person.”
