For some reason, the city of Albany holds its school board vote in November, rather than in May, when most other locations do. In fact, the school BUDGET IS voted upon in May, along with the library board and the library budget.
Anyway, someone called me up a few months ago and asked me if I wanted to run for school board. Last year, someone I knew told me that “people” were discussing having me run, but I never got a call. This year, I got a call from a local official who I knew before he was elected to his office. I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
It’s not that it’s an unpaid position that takes a lot of time. It’s more that school boards are handcuffed by No Child Left Behind/Race to the Top. Moreover, in the city Albany, the nine or ten charter schools, which are far less transparent financially than they ought to be, are paid for out of the school budget. In other words, I don’t know how to make the situation better, or even maintain the status quo.
A few years ago, I was also asked to run for the library board; THAT position I thought about for a while before declining for time reasons. Someday, I might run for that.
1. Have you ever thought of running for political office?
2. Have people requested that you run?
3. Have you run? For what office(s)?
4. Have you served in elected office?
I was in student government in high school, college, and grad school, but it’ll be a while before I try again.
There were more than a half dozen countywide positions for which there was no opposition candidate, only the Democrat. That is distressing, but I’m still not running.