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The same thing happened in the first school council election, too. Both times, an independent community representative came within a few votes of taking a seat–without, as Levinsohn accurately describes, any machine or carefully orchestrated and financed campaign effort. The first election, the distance was around 20 votes, this latest one just 4 votes. These results came from the spontaneous efforts of neighbors who care about the school. (Levinsohn errs in stating there was a non-Shiller community “slate” in the first election. There was not. At the time, no one knew the Fair Shares would apply such heavy-handed political strategies to a grammar school election.)
Even now, those who worked in the campaign for Joanne Gannett are attending the Stockton School Council meetings regularly–more often and with greater consistency than the “elected” council members from Fair Share. (The newly elected Fair Share secretary missed the October meeting; two Fair Share representatives missed a majority of meetings during the first two years of the council. They simply aren’t interested in the process or activity, and are apparently forced to run for the Council by Miglietta, Zaccor, et al.)
Among us folks that live around the Stockton School, the Fair Share social agenda finds both support and opposition. But many of us question why its political machinations have been introduced into the management of the local grammar school, and how ultimately this will teach our kids how to read and write. If after two years as president of the Local School Council Karen Zaccor can only say, “The teachers don’t teach,” one wonders whether the LSC is doing anything effective to inspire, direct and manage change among them–which ultimately is the mission they should be carrying out.
In the first election there was indeed a slate of candidates who represented the anti-Shiller forces, among them Barbara Littwin, who was elected and served two years.
