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.
Attn Darwin Central! Attn Darwin Central! If you're up, this should go to the pinglist.
Winning four-year seats tonight were Dover CARES candidates Bernadette Reinking (2,754 votes), Terry Emig (2,716), Herbert McIlvaine Jr. (2,677) and Bryan Rehm (2,625).
Incumbent board members seeking those seats were Sherrie Leber (2,584), James Cashman (2,526), Edward Rowand (2,547) and Alan Bonsell (2,469).
Winning two-year seats were Dover CARES candidates Lawrence Gurreri (2,623), Judy McIlvaine (2,658) and Patricia Dapp (2,670).
Incumbent board members seeking those seats were Eric Riddle (2,545), Ronald Short (2,544) and Sheila Harkins (2,466).
In a race for a separate two-year seat, Dover CARES candidate Phil Herman edged school board member David Napierskie, 2,542 votes to 2,516.
Republicans deserve to get their butts kicked when they embrace garbage like ID as "science". They're just as nutty as Democrats who want to introduce condoms in the first grade.
yes good. It doesnt belong in school, belongs at home.
PING to the ad-hoc crevo ping list. (PH has the official list.)
Wonder what excuses the ID shills will be conjuring up...
I see this is thread were people go to lose their souls...
Nothing is separating demorats and repubs. They might as well call themselves the the party of secularists.
Nextrush IIRC was trying to intimate here lately that Dover CARES was being bankrolled by the teachers' union.
I suppose they could also come up with a spin that the voters didn't want to pay the ACLU's lawyers' fees. Although I don't know if voting the old board out would change anything about that.
I dunno. Hey, creationists: Why do you think the Dover school board got thrown out en masse?
It's worse than that. We're the party of abolitionists!
While I firmly believe in evolution and see no contradictions in this belief in Christianity, it saddens me that schoolboards are not being allowed the slightest discretian in at least acknowleding that other viewpoints are out there.
Just one sentenc would put a lot of people at ease.
Evolution is about far more than just pure science, and anyone who tells you differently is full of it. Really, it's of very little consequence that one tortoise evolved from another after two populations had become isolated from one another. Useless OUTSIDE of what this tell us of who we are and where we came from.
And that is a much bigger subject and one that should not be taken lightly. It need not be discussed in a scientific classroom, but this is quite different than ionization energies.
Sure, evolution is useful in explaining viral and bacterial development, but when dealing with larger organisms, again, it's useless outside of what it tells us about the origins of "us" and life on this planet.
Heh heh heh. Go for it. It's your party, not mine.
Now that I think about it further, I think the continuing coverage of the trial by the York Daily Record & the York Dispatch probably done 'em in. Every day for the last few weeks, readers were treated to sometimes jaw-dropping mendacity by the board members. It couldn't help but embarrass them.
Intelligent design: a hypothesis.
Evolution: a theory.
Scientifically, both belong in the classroom. BUT it should be made clear that the above is the truth. In addition, neither concept has been introduced as a law, according to the scientific method. That should also be made clear.
However, the theological implications of intelligent design is largely a humanities issue and we'd be robbing children of a proper education if we didn't at least discuss them in classes that touch on theology.
*lol*
I know this is practically a one-liner, but maaaan...that's great.
Perhaps that intelligent design doesn't equate to intelligent campaigns?
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