Should school boards be elected? History suggests acclamations will rule the day

During this final round of the school review process, the question of bringing back elections for school trustees has arisen repeatedly but history suggests voters have little interest in turning out to cast a ballot.

There haven't been elections in the English system on P.E.I. since 2008, but the when the boards were elected, most candidates were acclaimed.

Official results are only available on the Elections P.E.I. websitefor the 2005 and 2008 elections, but show that the majority of positions in the eastern and western district boards were acclaimed.

Only unofficial results are available for the elections in 2002 and 1999, but a report written by the Education Governance Commission in March 2012 indicates only eight of 29 trustee zones were contested between the two elections.

The same report also suggestsvoter turnout for school board elections has been "abysmally" low.

In 2002 only 2.1 per centof eligible voters came out, a historic low.In 2008 it wasn't much better, with 3.6 per centgoing to the polls a starkcontrast to P.E.I's well-known high voter rates in provincial elections, typically coming in around 80 per cent in the last two decades.

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Supporters say it's different now

But supporters of the return to elected school boards say that's the past. Mallory Peters, president of the Georgetown Elementary Home and Schoolsaidelections are still better.

"An elected school board will always outweigh a hand picked one, especially when we live in a democracy," she said.

She thinks given what has been happening with the recent school reviews more people would get involved.

"With this process going the way that it is now has already put a lot of awareness around how important an elected school board is," she said.

"I think if an elected school board were to be brought back...there will be better voter turnout, that there will be more people involved in it because again, it is the only way that we feel that we're going to get a sound and fair process throughout this review."

Education critic Steven Myers agreed.He'd like to see the return to representation from across the Island on the boards.

"If they were to call school board elections right now the ballot would be full of people and the voter turnout would be high because people want control of their school system back," he said. "They'renot happy with a bunch of hand-picked bureaucrats in Charlottetown making all the decision for the rural areas."

Myers also said voter turnout shouldn't be a deciding factor on how to do things.

"If there's one person who votes in a provincial election the premier gets elected," he said. "It's the majority rules and the people who turn out to vote are the people who care about it and I don't know why government is so scared of letting Islanders have their say. "

Education Minister Doug Currie has maintained throughout the review process that there are no plans to put elections into place.

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Currie said he feels the needs of Islanders are covered off by advisory councils announced by government when the English language school board was disbanded.