Mary Rose Oakar and Roslyn Painter-Goffi.JPG
Both of Cuyahoga County's representatives to the state school board, Mary Rose-Oakar and Roslyn Painter-Goffi, will change this year. Oakar, a Democrat, will be replaced by fellow Democrat Meryl Johnson, while Democrat Painter-Goffi lost the November election to Republican Lisa Woods.
(Patrick O'Donnell/The Plain Dealer)
COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state school board has moved further to the political right as it starts 2017 with key decisions on charter schools, testing and graduation requirements on the horizon.
That the officially non-partisan board would unofficially lean either Republican or Democrat is unremarkable. That's how the board is designed, with the governor allowed to select eight of the 19 seats.
While Republicans have held a solid majority the last several years, their position has grown stronger.
Just two years ago, with eight elected Democrats on the board creating an 11-8 split, Democrats held a press conference to vow that their opposition voice would be loud and would be heard.
And it was.
The two sides have had vigorous debates the last two years, even when Republicans still had the numbers to prevail.
- Republicans have had stronger support for testing and setting high expectations for student scores, particularly to graduate from high school, while Democrats have wanted less.
- Republicans have wanted school districts to have freedom to decide their own staffing and how to serve gifted students, while Democrats have wanted more requirements.
- And Democrats called for an outside investigation after the Ohio Department of Education mishandled charter school oversight evaluations, while Republicans wanted to limit inquiries.
Resignations and voters have now tipped things further toward Republicans. When the board meets Monday for the first time in 2017, the split will widen to 14-5, with one of the five left-leaning members not even registered for either party.
Gone is Dayton member A.J. Wagner, a Democrat who resigned in November for personal reasons, and who was one of the leading Democrat voices.
In his place, Kasich on Friday appointed Charlotte McGuire, a Republican that Wagner defeated in their school board race two years ago. McGuire, a former employee of the Montgomery County Juvenile Court, is now known as "Prophetess McGuire" as she and her husband run a Dayton church, Joshua Christian Ministries.
In that 2014 race, she advocated for repealing the Common Core standards in Ohio and supported charter schools as offering competition to districts.
Also gone is former Berea school district teacher Roslyn Painter-Goffi, also a Democrat and who was backed by teachers unions. Replacing her is conservative activist and one-time Tea Party organizer Lisa Woods, who beat her in the November election.
And Republicans scored a major win in 2015 when Democrat and former State Rep. Bob Hagan of Youngstown stepped down to take a job out of state. Kasich filled that seat last year with someone even more politically savvy than Hagan - former Lieutenant Governor Nancy Hollister.
State school board member Nancy Hollister.
After serving under former Gov. George Voinovich, Hollister was briefly Ohio's first female governor when she filled that post for 11 days in 1999 between Voinovich joining the U.S. Senate and Bob Taft taking office as governor.
Hollister, of Marietta, has since defeated strong Democratic opposition from former State Rep. Debbie Phillips in the November election to fill the last two years of Hagan's term.
She now is a candidate to become the board's vice president next week.
Board member Stephanie Dodd, one of the leaders of the minority coalition, won re-election in November and remains, but Dodd concedes that it there's no real opposition group anymore with goals or any agenda.
"I may be the lone voice," she said, though a few new board members will also likely offer opposing view to the majority.
The board's presidency will also change Monday, though it will likely remain Republican. Board President Tom Gunlock is stepping down from that job, though he will remain on the board.
State school board member Tess Elshoff.
The expected replacement is Tess Elshoff, from rural New Knoxville, who has served as vice president for the last two years. She has been a low-key vice-president, in contrast to Gunlock, who had led the overhaul of state report cards before becoming president.
Unlike two years ago, there is no organized effort to promote any Democrats for either President or Vice-President.
Here are some of the other changes to the board:
- Mary Rose Oakar, the former Democratic Congresswoman who represented Cleveland and many Cuyahoga County suburbs, is out because of term limits. Meryl Johnson, another Democrat and former Cleveland teacher, won that seat in November.
Backed by Oakar, Johnson will be vocal in her support of urban and underprivileged schools and students.
- Replacing Democrat and vocal member Michael Collins, from suburban Columbus, is Antoinette Miranda, director of the School Psychology Program in the Department of Educational Studies at Ohio State University. She advocates for reduced testing, more funding for schools and more accountability for charter schools.
- Replacing Democrat Ann Jacobs of Lima will be non-partisan Shawnee school board member Linda Haycock, also a Lima resident. Haycock told the Toledo Blade before the election that she is skeptical of counting on standardized tests to show how well schools are doing. She also wanted any school that receives public money, including charter schools, to be as accountable as traditional districts.
- Republican Ron Rudduck, who brought his background as a superintendent to the board, chose not to seek re-election. Nick Owens, a Brown County prosecutor, won that seat. He said in his campaign that he wants to have more drug education, an improved graduation rate and high standards for students.