Posted on 11/05/2003 12:32:47 PM PST by avg_freeper
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A Stillwater area school district decision to provide laptops to junior high students apparently fueled a record number of write-in votes for the school board Tuesday and led to the defeat of three incumbents.
Nancy Hoffman and Christopher Kunze, who announced as write-in candidates shortly after the laptop decision was made in September, won seats on the board, along with incumbent David "Choc" Junker — who voted against the laptop plan — and challenger Andrée M. Aronson.
"The laptop issue fueled people to go out," Hoffman said. "But I think people liked where we stood on other issues and saw they could trust us and communicate with us."
Mary Cecconi, Christy Hlavacek and John Uppgren — all of whom voted for the laptop plan — lost their bids for re-election.
About 33 percent of the 20,496 votes recorded went to write-in candidates, a figure school and county election officials said was unheard of.
Mike Torkelson, a Minnesota School Board Association staff member, said write-in candidates rarely win school board elections, and when they do, it's usually because not enough candidates filed for the number of slots open on the board.
"It's not real common," he said. "Obviously, the laptop issue must have really generated turnout for the write-ins."
The district entered into a $1.75 million agreement in late September with Apple Computer to provide laptops to students at Oak-Land Junior High in Lake Elmo.
Some residents and parents said they were angry that the district went ahead with the plan without giving the public enough information beforehand.
Some board members defended the process, saying the laptop initiative had been discussed at board and PTA meetings in August and September.
Superintendent Kathleen Macy said she believes all the new school board members are going to be on a steep learning curve with the complex issues the district faces each year.
She said serving on a school board is a thankless job, and all three outgoing board members have put in countless hours to improve student achievement.
"(The vote) doesn't change the commitment of the staff to educate all of our students to the highest level," Macy said. "And I believe that anyone that enters a board of education cares about educating all of the children in our district."
NORTH ST. PAUL-MAPLEWOOD-OAKDALE
The North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school district will have three newcomers to its school board: Theresa Augé, Marc Cove and Pam Cunningham. Only one incumbent, Nancy Livingston, will return next year. Jerry Hanson and Dick Baldwin did not get re-elected.
Hanson said the Republican Party put in a tremendous amount of money to oust the incumbents and ran a negative campaign.
"We didn't have... the money to counteract," he said. "It's not a loss for me, it's a loss for our kids. It's sad when people are more concerned about the tax burden rather than the kids."
SOUTH WASHINGTON COUNTY
The South Washington County school board will have one new member, Cottage Grove resident Ron Kath. Kath, along with incumbents Tracy Brunnette and Jim Gelbmann, will serve four-year terms, while incumbent Craig Wruck will serve a two-year term.
FOREST LAKE
The Forest Lake school district was still counting results late Tuesday evening, but only five candidates were vying for five slots on the board. Incumbents Bill Bresin, Joseph Grafft and Robert Rapheal, along with newcomer Keith Dunham, will all likely serve four-year terms, with incumbent Karen Morehead likely taking a two-year term.
But it is not about the laptop issue. Yeah, right.
Superintendent Kathleen Macy said she believes all the new school board members are going to be on a steep learning curve with the complex issues the district faces each year.
We are smarter than the unwashed ones, only we know the problems. Yeah, right.
"We didn't have... the money to counteract," he said. "It's not a loss for me, it's a loss for our kids. It's sad when people are more concerned about the tax burden rather than the kids."
Only us liberals care about the kids, the repubs want to make sure they eat dogfood and stay stupid. Yeah, right.
These people got what they deserved and the good news is that maybe their political careers are finished for good!
At least Macs don't suffer from Blue Screens of Death and run on top of DOS like Windows does. What? Current versions of Windows are pretty stable and don't run on top of DOS any more? Well, guess what? Apples don't cost much more than PCs anymore. This isn't 1996. Dell isn't still putting Windows 95 on their machines and Apples cost pretty much what a comparably priced PC goes for these days. If you don't believe me, price out an eMac and a iBook against a Dell with comparable features.
You can get a 12" iBook for $1,100. Retail. Less if you are a school. Compare and contrast the suitability of that laptop with a similarly priced product from your favorite PC vendor. Bear in mind that the iBook really does get about 4-5 hours of life out of a battery charge and has one of the best wireless antennas on any laptop.
This is not to say that I think they should be giving Junior High students laptops. I don't. BUt if you are going to waste the money giving public school students laptops, the Apple iBook is not a bad choice. I own one I've traveled with it on airplanes in a thin canvas bag without worrying about breaking it. I've worked with (recent) Dell and HP laptops. I'd be afraid of one of those laptops breaking into little pieces if they banged into something without padding.
Yes, I know I'm ranting. But I get the impression that people who criticize Macs or PCs are still living in 1996 because they act as if the battle is still between unstable versions of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 and overpriced beige Macs with a 68000 chip. A lot has changed since 1996 on both fronts.
Go ahead. I saw the smiley. I'm just so sick of hearing about how expensive Macs are that I don't think it is a joking matter.
Gateway was advertising laptops last week for $700 (actually, $699, but why quibble). And I'm sure a school district could have gotten a break off that.
There's no way one company (apple) can out-compete the rest of the universe.
Or perhaps there are enough individuals out there who remember a time when children were adequately educated without a single computer around. Let-alone one per student.
"We didn't have... the money to counteract," he said. "It's not a loss for me, it's a loss for our kids. It's sad when people are more concerned about the tax burden rather than the kids."
Oops, I forgot, it's not about the little fifedom of some demo educrat who know better how to spend the parent's money than the parents do themselves ... it's about the kids
I hope I live long enough to see anyone who uses children as pawns for their own personal and/or political gain dragged through the streets and beaten within an inch of his or her life.
I'll bet this fool doesn't even live in the district.
My step-daughter is in Jr. High and there is NO WAY I would let her and her friends cart a laptop back-and-forth to school.
Translation, I am going to miss my lapdogs.
Concerns about how well a $700 Windows laptop actually works aside, if I give a hundred of those $700 Gateway laptops to some Junior High students for a year to carry around school and take home, how many of those laptops do you think will still be working at the end of that year? Have you actually seen or held an iBook? I've been shopping for a PC Laptop for a while now (yes, I've even gone to a Gateway store to look at their low-end laptop and we have a fairly recent Dell laptop at work) and none of them impress me as being particularly solid. I also believe you'll need to stick a loose wireless card into that Gateway that can be stolen and I doubt that the Gateway gets 4-5 hours on a battery charge. Oh, and try buying a smaller Gateway with a 12" monitor and see how much that will cost you.
There's no way one company (apple) can out-compete the rest of the universe.
What does that statement mean? Apple isn't trying to create the cheapest laptop in the world because the cheapest laptop in the world cuts corners and might be crap. They are trying to make the best quality laptop for the cheapest price that they can and the iBook succeeds pretty well at that. Are you trying to deny that it is impossible for one laptop vendor to produce a higher quality product than other laptop vendors? They are all using roughly the same components that cost roughly the same amount of money. Design is what seperates them, regardless of whether they run Windows or OSX.
Here's the key to the public's anger --- clearly they saw the laptop issue as spending tons of money on non-necessities!
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