Wednesday, September 11, 2002
LAKELAND -- The Polk County School District will not be the nation's largest to have an elected superintendent for much longer. Proponents of the push to abolish Polk's elected superintendent system won in the campaign to bring an appointed superintendent to Polk when voters narrowly approved a ballot referendum Tuesday, with 38,100 "yes" votes, or 51.6 percent, to 35,798 "no" votes, or 48.4 percent. As a result, the Polk School Board will for the first time choose the next superintendent instead of allowing voters to elect the district's leader. "We all felt that this was the best thing for our kids," said Hunt Berryman, head of Citizens for Quality Education, the political action committee that led the effort for the ballot initiative. As returns came in, "yes" votes led in the referendum all night, fluctuating between 2 percent and 4 percent. One of the leading opponents of the referendum, Polk School Superintendent Jim Thornhill conceded victory to supporters of the ballot referendum. "We put it on the ballot to see what people wanted," Thornhill said. "I would have preferred that it did not pass." Thornhill will be able to remain in office until his term expires in 2004. Proponents say a superintendent appointment would bring more accountability to the School District and especially to the School Board. Opponents made the referendum a voters' right issue, arguing that the appointment would take away citizen input. With about 82,000 students, the Polk School District is the largest school system in the nation to be led by an elected superintendent. It is the eighth largest school district in the state. Tuesday marked the seventh time Polk voters considered the issue. Six previous ballot attempts had failed. The last such vote was in 1994. The first came in 1968, when the issue appeared on the ballot as a statewide constitutional amendment. Before Tuesday, the closest the referendum came to passing was in 1984, when there was a 247-vote margin out of 41,509 ballots cast. The issue reappeared on the ballot this year following a $150,000 study by SchoolMatch, an Ohio-based consulting company. The study was critical of the elected governance structure of the School District. Called the "Audit of Education Effectiveness," the study, a comprehensive report on the academic quality of Polk schools, was the catalyst for the referendum. The study said the elected superintendent system was flawed because it tends to create "tension among school employees who feel obligated to take sides in an administrative leadership election." The report was released in February after Polk Businesses for WorldClass Education, a coalition of businesses and organization, paid for it. The Polk County School Board voted 6-1 on June 25 to place the appointed superintendent issue on the ballot. The lone dissenter in the vote was board member Larry Peacock. Peacock was up for re-election this year, but he decided to step down after one term. The board turned over the referendum campaign to Citizens for Quality Education, a political action committee with ties to Polk Businesses for WorldClass Education. Berryman, president of Sunco Carriers in Lakeland and chairman of the WorldClass group, was the leader of the political action committee. As of Sept. 5, the PAC had raised $159,260 and spent $145,721 on signs, TV and newspaper ads. Berryman was the largest contributor to the PAC, donating $30,500. The campaign fund was the largest ever for the supporters of the referendum. "The money that went into the campaign made the difference," said Steve Permuth, a University of South Florida professor who teaches courses in educational leadership and policy studies. In addition to Berryman and the six School Board members, key backers of the referendum include businesses and chambers of commerce. The opposition did not form an official political action committee |
