House Bill Would Reduce DeKalb's School Board Size

DeKalb County’s school board would shrink from nine to seven members, under a bill passed Monday by the Georgia House of Representatives.

Senate Bill 79, which was opposed by many Democratic members of DeKalb’s legislative delegation, “sets the optimum number of members for the DeKalb County school board at seven, which we’ve already agreed upon, in previous legislation and debates, as the ideal number for a school board,” said Majority Whip Ed Lindsey, R-Atlanta, the bill’s main House sponsor.

The bill, which passed by a vote of 109-62, now heads back to the Senate for final approval with two days left in this legislative session.

DeKalb County Board of Education member Gene Walker, who represents District 9, called the bill racist because it would likely diminish the board's diversity. The board currently has five black members and four white members.

"They're using that majority Republican General Assembly to abuse minorities," Walker said Tuesday. "They'd rather to have us suffer the tyranny of silence than to accomodate our speaking out."

Board member Don McChesney, who represents District 2, also said he took issue with the bill because he said a board's size doesn't necessarily influence its quality. He also said the bill could force board members to run for re-election while they're trying to bring in the next superintendent – an unwise complication, he said. McChesney also said he wasn't sure it was legal to force board members to run for re-election before their terms were completed.

"If you have nine bozos on the board, you have a bad board. If you have five bozos on the board, you have a bad board," he said. "It comes down to, 'Who do you elect?'"

One metro Atlanta Democrat who supported the bill was state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, who said, “This bill is about the 99,000 children in DeKalb County who have a constitutional right to a quality education.”

Oliver, who represents portions of Decatur and DeKalb County, broke ranks with many of her Democratic colleagues in supporting the bill, which many DeKalb Democrats argued was an intrusion of the state into a strictly local matter.

“The DeKalb delegation was never given the chance to consider this bill,” said state Rep. “Coach” Williams, D-Avondale Estates. “Why is the state making policy decisions about one or two school systems within Georgia? Let's get back to the concept of local control.”

“There is no right way to a wrong thing, and this is wrong on so many levels,” said state Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates. “When does local control actually come into play down here? When it’s not your local government that’s being controlled?”

But Oliver said, “In light of SACS actions, and governance and conduct issues of the DeKalb school board, the size of the board should be reduced. Smaller boards serve children better.”

State Rep. Mike Jacobs, R-Atlanta, also argued in favor of the bill.

"It’s already the policy of the state that local school boards be limited to no more than seven members,” said Jacobs, a Republican whose district also includes portions of Brookhaven. “That’s because education experts agree that smaller school boards provide higher quality governance.

This is an opportunity to put kids above politics,” he said. “This legislation is important to our 99.000 students in DeKalb and to the 49,000 students in Atlanta.”

The bill would also give the governor the power to remove members of the Atlanta school board.