Orlando Sentinel, Editorial: September 21, 2007

Real leadership
Our position: It's time the School Board put an elected chairman before voters.

The Orange County School Board's meeting Tuesday is sure to be a doozy. It could be a red-letter day. If School Board members keep the promise they made more than a year ago, they'll approve ballot language so voters can decide whether to create a countywide elected chairman.

Or Tuesday could be another frustrating disappointment. If board members pull a fast one, voters likely won't get a chance to decide the issue until next November, after supporters of the chairman idea mount a costly petition drive.

Board members should have more respect for the community and voters than that. They should complete the process they began on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2006, when they voted to place the question on the 2008 presidential-primary ballot.

Of course, things are never that simple at the Orange County School Board. It has delayed acting on this for more than a year, and now a technicality has popped up that could give board members a quick chance to kill the idea.
Remember when the Legislature moved the presidential primary to January?

Well, the vote taken by the board last year was to put the question on the ballot for the presidential primary in March. Since there's now no primary in March, School Board attorney Frank Kruppenbacher says that means board members have to vote on the issue again.

Mr. Kruppenbacher says it's just a formality. Let's hope so.
Tuesday's vote isn't about approving this position, which most School Board members oppose. It's simply about giving voters the right to decide the issue.

It makes no sense that the board in charge of Orange County Public Schools—with more than 177,700 students, 24,800 employees and an operating budget of $1.2 billion—should follow the same practice as a town council that anoints one of its members to cut ribbons at supermarket openings.

The solution to this leadership vacuum is to elect a School Board chairman as a first-among-equals. The appointed superintendent would still run the day-to-day operations, but an elected chairman with a four-year term would provide consistent leadership.

And someone to be held accountable by all voters for the district's performance.

The School Board would still have seven members from single-member districts elected to protect the interests of minorities and of neighborhood schools. In tie votes, the chairman's side would prevail—the same way the governor and Cabinet works in Tallahassee.

The right call Tuesday is to put this on the ballot and let this community begin the debate on this important public-policy issue. Keeping it off the ballot will only keep this issue simmering and dividing this community until next November.