Posted on 11/08/2005 11:05:11 PM PST by jennyp
Dover CARES swept the race for school board Tuesday defeating board members who supported the curriculum change being challenged in federal court.
After months of fierce campaigning that included some mudslinging from both sides, new members of the board are Bernadette Reinking, Rob McIlvaine, Bryan Rehm, Terry Emig, Patricia Dapp, Judy McIlvaine, Larry Gurreri and Phil Herman.
The challengers defeated James Cashman, Alan Bonsell, Sherrie Leber, Ed Rowand, Eric Riddle, Ron Short, Sheila Harkins and Dave Napierskie. Results are not official until certified by the county.
“We’re still in shock because we were expecting to have some wins,” said Dapp, who won a two-year term. “We weren’t expecting to have all eight.”
Dapp said “we recognized very quickly that we were a very cohesive, well-working team. I think that is one of our many strengths of what we will bring to the board.”
Candidates weigh in
Board members Bonsell and Harkins, who had voted in favor of adding intelligent design into the ninth grade science curriculum, received the least amount of votes, with 2,469 and 2,466, respectively. Bonsell and Harkins did not return phone calls about the results Tuesday.
Reinking, who was running for a four-year term, received the most overall votes with 2,754.
“It’s a nice thing,” she said. “I’m very flattered and very humble about the whole thing.”
During the campaign, the eight Dover CARES candidates had questioned the incumbents’ truthfulness and fiscal responsibility, while the eight incumbents touted their achievements in keeping taxes in line and the ability to provide quality education.
Cashman, who was running for a four-year term, had said during the day Tuesday that “I expect to win, but it’s not a big celebratory thing.”
About the loss, Cashman said, “We put our effort into this and we tried to manage the school district as conservatively as we could. I have nothing to be ashamed about.”
Rehm said he believed the voters responded because of the challengers’ combined efforts. It wasn’t one thing. They went door-to-door, held public meetings and didn’t exclude anyone, said Rehm, who won a four-year seat.
A major topic in this year’s race was the 2004 curriculum change that added a statement about intelligent design to the ninth-grade science curriculum.
The elected board members oppose mentioning intelligent design in science class. Rehm was one of 11 parents who sued the board in U.S. Middle District Court. The trial concluded Friday and Judge John E. Jones III hopes to have a decision before the year’s end.
Effects on ID Case
Regardless of the election results, those six weeks of the trial have not been lost, according to attorneys on both sides.
“The suit goes on,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Harvey of Pepper Hamilton. “The mere election of a new board does not change anything.”
Harvey and defense attorney Richard Thompson of Thomas More Law Center said Jones has a set of facts to use to determine his ruling.
Harvey said he did not want to speculate on the fallout of what the new board might do. Thompson gave several scenarios.
The new board could change the policy and determine how it will handle legal appeals. It could keep Thomas More or choose another firm if it wishes to continue the case to keep intelligent design in the curriculum.
If the judge rules against the board, Thompson said, the new board could decide not to fight and could therefore be stuck with the plaintiffs’ legal fees, as requested in the suit.
“What is done is done,” Reinking said about the court proceeding, “but to take it to the Supreme Court? To me that won’t be an issue.”
ACLU attorney Witold Walczak said if the board abandons the intelligent design statement, the plaintiffs want a court order stating the new board won’t re-institute it.
“It actually is a way to conclude the litigation,” Walczak said. “The parties sign essentially a contract that says they will stop the unconstitutional conduct.”
Outside ID
Though intelligent design has captured international attention, it was not the only issue in the election.
For example, Dapp said looking at the district budget is one of the new board’s first challenges.
Property taxes, fiscal responsibility, a teachers contract and full disclosure of board members’ actions arose during the campaign.
Roughly 200 teachers attended the board meeting Monday night to show their support for a new contract. Their old contract expired in June.
Sandi Bowser, president of the teachers union who lives outside of the district and didn’t vote for board members, said the union didn’t officially support one group, but the teachers who have been vocal supported Dover CARES.
“I think that the people who are working with Dover CARES have children in the district and are concerned about some of the things that are going on including intelligent design in the science classroom,” she said.
Maybe they can just call it "The Controversy." That seems to be all they've got. As a case study in quackery, it's probably worth a mention in some course on abnormal psychology.
ATTENTION KARL ROVE: Dump ID. It's a loser. Dump it now!
Thanks, but I didn't think to mention probably the most damaging result: Lots more influence for the teachers' unions.
You say po-TAY-toe, I say po-TAH-toe...
ID *is* "demonstrated dishonesty".
The funny thing is, you creationists/IDers claim to be awfully fond of letting local communities decide whether or not to teach evolution.
Them when the people of a community reject your political agenda and show your pet politicians the door, you throw a hissy fit.
You are entirely and grossly mistaken. Please explain where you "learned" such an enormous falsehood, and why you are so misguided as to post it here.
The board was too busy ignoring constituents to address the teachers' contract?
Eight out of nine of the members of the "ID" supporting school boardwere up for re-election.
100% of them were defeated. Eight out of eight -- every single one of them was given their walking papers by the voters.
Deal with *that* "big loss in percentage terms", and stop trying to spin it.
Yes, it says that Republicans hand victories to the ACLU when they get involved in the "ID"/creationism garbage.
Now cover the other eye and try again.
You have very large misunderstandings about what science actually is and isn't. First, science does not deal in "proof". Second, there are far fewer "missing links" in evolutionary biology than most people try to imply. Third, The evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly huge and independently cross-confirming -- the few paltry things that naysayers can point to that are "missing" are entirely beside the point, and such complaints are intentional attempts to deceive and distract from the existing evidence.
Absolutely LOL. At you, not with you.
First you say this "Always nice to see you secular, anti-christ, anti-american neo-darwinist zealots are alive and well. With you wackos at the helm the Reformation never would have occurred!"
followed by:"Unable to explain your precious evolution on a molecular level, unable to prove your theory of macroevolution, unable to state evolution in a LAW, you resort to personal invective and castigation"
Seems you like to resort to personal invective and castigation as well. Have you considered reading what you post for internal inconsistency?
Would you settle for "'taters"?
My take is that what folks -think- ID is (sort of a maybe-scientific underpinning to Creation) wouldn't necessarily get the board dumped... a majority may agree with that perception of ID.
Knowing that board lied is a different kettle of fish ('taters) altogether, though.
Also interesting to note that the real Doctor Savage has mentioned "millions of years of evolution" in a matter-of-fact way on his conservative radio show on multiple occasions, is quite biologically literate, and once considered Charles Darwin to be a personal hero. Quite ironic.
GOOD NEWS for a change!
The Fleeing Cur is the lamest of trolls.
Been there, done that. :-)
Something along the lines of Isaac Asimov's essays on science (e.g., those in collections like "The Stars in Their Courses", "The Relativity of Wrong", etc.) would be a *great* science curriculum, especially for gradschool level, since they focus not on math and analysis, but on the nature of scientific discovery.
They're little snapshots of how various discoveries in science were first suspected, then thought of, then investigated, tested, and validated. They read like exciting detective stories (because in a way, they are), and in the process give a marvelous understanding of how and why the scientific method accomplishes things, weeds out error, and uncovers real knowledge.
A great deal of my love of science is due to reading Asimov's essays as a child.
Also the essay "The Relativity of Wrong" should be required reading by all confused IDers/AECreationists. It nails one of their most frequent fallacies (the notion that if a theory isn't 100% correct, then it's 100% wrong). We see this fallacy from the creationists again and again, especially in their comments implying that everything in science routinely gets thrown entirely out the window every generation or so to be replaced with something entirely different (in fact, most of past paradigms are still standing, albeit with later refinements), and their strange belief that if they can identify even one minor flaw or unresolved question in evolution, then they've destroyed the entire theory. This fallacy is also involved when they think that scientists changing a minor detail the vast body of evolutionary biology (e.g. where exactly a given species sprang from in the tree of life) shows that science "doesn't really know anything" or is some kind of "complete rewrite" of evolutionary biology, etc.
Actually "facts" in science are far more susceptible to change than a theory. Also not matter how much evidence is accumulated, a scientific theory will never change into a "fact" or a "law".
Also there is more evidence and backing up the theory of evolution that gravitation theory.
The magic goes away.
I understand your point - I was lucky enough to have some good teachers at that age that totally mesmerized me with science, though; shaped the future path of my career. Kids that age might be better serviced by a specialist science teacher who floats from classroom to classroom, showing up a few times a week to really show kids the "interesting" side of science with experiments, etc. (Such things cost $$, though, unfortunately...)
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