More than 25,000 parents turned out to the online polls from April 6 to 29 to cast votes for their Community Education Council members.
This election, although only an advisory vote for the Parent Teacher Association and Parent Association members who will vote officially for CEC members online from May 12 to 14, marks the first time that parents have been able to participate in CEC elections. Community Education Councils are groups that meet regularly to represent neighborhood parents, residents, and business-owners to discuss school policy and instruction.
The results of the straw vote will not be released until next week, but community members have speculated as to what the significance of an exclusively online vote might be.
The city’s Department of Education, Grassroots Initiative, and Election-America are all overseeing the election through Power to the Parents.
Jeff Merritt, president and founder of Grassroots Initiative, which is managing all community outreach and candidate and voter assistance for the election, said that there weren’t any clear expectations set for election turnout because it was the first one of its kind.
“In a new election, it comes down to awareness,” Merritt said. “For a lot of people, this is the first time they’ve heard of the CEC because it wasn’t an open voting process.”
Before this year, he said, parents weren’t aware that the election was held, or that the positions even existed.
“It takes time for parents to get active,” Merritt explained, noting that the next election will see increased participation. He added, though, that whether or not there is a next election depends on whether schools remain under mayoral control.
“No one can tell you what the system will look like because of the upcoming election,” Merritt explained, referring to the city’s mayoral election.
While there will not be extensive analysis on the success of this year’s straw vote for another month, each PTA and PA selector will receive the results of his or her particular school’s advisory vote results before the official election in May.
Following this election, there will be a feedback survey asking selectors whether they took the advisory vote into consideration and if they found it helpful, according to Merritt.
Harriet Barnes, current president of CEC for Harlem’s District 5, said that because she will have reached her term limit, she encouraged members with small children to continue to serve on the council.
Speculating about voter participation, Barnes said that the election may bring out more participants because it’s online, simply because “more people have computers now than they did years ago.”
Yet she noted that getting people to vote would be a challenge, regardless of the method used.
“A lot of people are just not interested with what the DOE is doing because it’s been one lie after another so you just shrug your shoulders,” Barnes said. She explained that the Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy—which is a department of the DOE—pushed its own people to run for each district of the CEC.
“If the CEC is under the DOE, you’re not advocating for parents,” Barnes said, citing the importance of the CEC as a place for a community’s parents to voice their concerns about their children’s education.
Barnes said she hopes that Dianne Johnson, currently on CEC for District 5, would become president through this election. “She’s very gung ho,” Barnes said.
On Tuesday, the last day of the election, Johnson said she thought the straw vote gave parents greater opportunity to see who they’re voting for through the campaign literature, which included short biographies of each candidate.
“It opens up a realm of something different,” Johnson said, noting that the election gave parents a voice they previously didn’t have.
She said that she got a good response through forums and other outreach she conducted during the election. Her main goal, if elected, would be to help parents advocate for their children, she said.
Projecting on election turnout based on her campaigning, Johnson said she thinks “numbers will be very good because it gives parents more of an opportunity ... The Internet offers a variety of information. It’s more accessible.” She didn’t think that anyone would be deterred from voting because of lack of Internet access, noting that parents without Internet access could go to their child’s school to vote.
Still, others professed doubts about who would vote in an online straw vote.
“I think it’s kind of a ridiculous exercise,” said Sarah Morgridge, executive assistant to Robert Jackson, who represents Morningside Heights on the New York City Council and chairs the Education Committee. “Why would anyone who doesn’t have a computer go to the trouble of logging in and voting for a vote that doesn’t count?”