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Schools

School Board member takes rivalry to ballot box

One board member chooses to challenge another for re-election to the same seat. They often disagree.

By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published April 1, 2006

In an unusual move, a Pinellas School Board member has decided to run for re-election against a fellow board member.

Mary Russell, who was first elected to the board in 2002, announced Friday her intention to seek the District 2 at-large seat. Board member Nancy Bostock filed for that seat almost a year ago.

"I think that Mrs. Bostock and I value different things," Russell said when asked why she chose to run for the District 2 race. "I think the community values our public education system as much as I do. I think we need to have board members who value it, too."

Russell, who has disagreed with Bostock on myriad issues, said the board needs a shakeup.

"I guess this is my way of saying, one way or another, we're going to have to get on track as a team that's all working in the same direction," she said. "I don't want to be part of a School Board that can't work for the common good of students. It's just not acceptable."

Bostock, who also came to the board in 2002, was not available for comment Friday.

Board member Jane Gallucci said she couldn't recall another time when two incumbents competed for the same seat.

"It's very rare, said Gallucci, who soon will become president of the National School Boards Association. "It's usually because something happens like the redrawing of the boundary lines and there is not a seat for everybody, unlike this case."

So far, 13 candidates have filed to run for four School Board seats that will be filled in the fall. Besides Russell and Bostock, Linda Lerner and Mary Brown are running for re-election.

Russell told the St. Petersburg Times last week that she was still trying to decide if she would run. One consideration, she said, was which seat to seek.

A 2002 realignment of School Board districts afforded her three options. Two of them involved challenging one of her fellow board members, Bostock or Lerner. Her third option was to run for the District 3 at-large seat, where six nonincumbents have formally launched campaigns.

In a prepared statement announcing her candidacy, Russell said this year's election offers voters the opportunity to "re-elect a School Board member that is passionate" about public education.

"After much reflection on the past three years, I have come to the realization that I can't not run for School Board," Russell said. "Because of the transitional period our school district is experiencing, our community needs an active School Board willing to speak out on their behalf."

Russell often speaks her mind at board meetings, taking positions that have put her in the minority on key issues, including the extension of school superintendent Clayton Wilcox' contract and, more recently, the best way to cut $19-million from the School Board's budget.

Such dissent is not necessarily unhealthy for a School Board, Gallucci said. But having two incumbents vying for the same seat could be problematic.

"It doesn't have to be, but it could be," Gallucci said.

Russell, 35, earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, where she is now working on a master's degree in journalism. She worked as an elementary school teacher for three years before transferring to a Pinellas Technical Education Center to teach in a family literacy program.

She helped found Teachers United for the Future, known as TUFF-Teach, a grass roots group that often is critical of school district bureaucracy.

If re-elected, Russell said, her focus would be on "bringing the School Board together around the value of public education."

"I'm not sure we'll ever agree on all the other stuff," she said, "but I think if we all had a deep value for the public education system, we'd be better off."

[Last modified April 1, 2006, 00:54:05]