Board should play fair with vacancy

Veteran Spokane School Board member Terrie Beaudreau has decided to step down more than four months before her term ends. That leaves her board colleagues with an important decision, one that will say a lot about whether they want that position to be accountable to the public or to the board itself.

Beaudreau is the senior member of the Spokane board, having served since 1985. By resigning effective June 15, instead of serving out her term and simply not running for re-election, she allows the remaining four board members to choose her successor. And although her announcement came as a public surprise at Wednesday evening’s regular board meeting, the timing and procedures by which the selection will be made were already in place.

Qualified applicants must submit their materials by 5 p.m. May 26. Interviews will begin June 13, and plans call for a decision to be announced June 22.

If the new board member becomes a candidate for a full term this fall, that person will enter the race with a set of political advantages over any challenger – the publicity and name familiarity that come with more than four months on the job and in the public eye, for example, and the inside familiarity that a sitting board member acquires about school district affairs.

Those factors don’t assure victory at the polls, but they afford that candidate a head start over any rival. They may even discourage potential opponents from filing at all.

The board could, and should, appoint a caretaker to the vacant seat, a dedicated citizen who doesn’t want to run for a full term this fall. Many people in Spokane could fulfill that task ably. That way, all candidates for the seat could start their campaigns on an equal basis in the eyes of the voters. That would be fair to the candidates and, more important, fair to the voters.

The five-member board that governs Spokane Public Schools is intended to represent public opinion. Ideally, it includes a mixture of outlooks that reflect the rich diversity of community thinking about public education. The more opportunity the board members themselves have to influence the choice of their fellow members, the more inbred it becomes, and the less accountable to the patrons and taxpayers whose interests the school district is supposed to serve.

Beaudreau herself first joined the board when she was named to fill the vacancy left by Joyce Bobb-Itt, who left Spokane for a job in the Tri-Cities. Beaudreau’s own brief letter of resignation did not explain why she is departing early.

That choice having been made, however, the board can show its respect for public opinion by selecting a temporary replacement and refraining from influencing this fall’s election.