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.
Thanks for the ping. Keep religeon out of science.
I think Derbyshire is being too nice here. The IDers and Creationists are idealogical allies of the Left; there's no difference in their philosophy or policics; they just have differing labels. Both groups are out to destroy scientific inquiry. The Scientolgists, New-Agers, etc. are just wannabes.
So you're not actually reading about the case at hand, you just like to hang out here and make snarky remarks about other posters?
That says it all. Sheesh.
LOL!
I'm willing to debate you on the issue at any time, if you're actually interested in doing so.
With the votes hanging around the 50% mark, losing all eight is a 1 to 255 shot. You'd make more money betting on the double zero.
Of course, as they have been shown willing to lie under oath about one thing, why assume they are telling the truth about fincances. (Same comment I have been making about The Clintons for over a decade now.)
Vox-populi-PLACEMARKER
Great minds think alike....
;-)
I think the salient point is that Lamaitre derived the BBT from the combination of Hubble's red-shift data and the field equations of GR, not from some religious document or doctrine. The fact that he also found it secularly satisfying is a coincidence, one to which the theory's genesis is clearly unrelated. In short, Lamaitre proposed the BBT because the SCIENTIFIC observational evidence and theorectical calculations demanded and supported it.
In the case of the Dove Case, the tell-tale finger prints of religiously, not scientifically, derived Creationism was all over the "suggested reading material," the board members' motives, and the legal team's impetus to find a school board dumb enough to be their jurisprudential guinea pig.
Looks like I got my Savages confused!! Thanks for clearing that up...
It is well established that 1=2 for very large values of "1."
"1" -- a Constant in Crisis! Teach the Controversy!
ID is to biology what socialism is to economics.
Creation science is to science what Ebonics is to English.
The only way he can get his garbage accepted as "scientific theory" is to change the definition.
You should know it is no longer the Beagles Barf. It is now the Cabal Corral.
Just a name change. Same management, same great food (ptui!)
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