15 People Fighting to Be Part Of Board's Uncertain Future

Voters from all four school board districts -- each covers two wards -- will elect a new president to replace Peggy Cooper Cafritz. Voters in Wards 5 and 6 will choose a District 3 replacement for Tommy Wells, who won the Democratic primary for Sharon Ambrose's Ward 6 seat on the council. And voters in Wards 7 and 8 will decide whether to reelect Lockridge to his seat.

The new mayor will appoint two at-large members to fill the seats of Robin B. Martin and Carrie L. Thornhill, whose terms will be up at the end of the year. If voters elect Graham, also an appointed member, to be president, the mayor would have to fill her vacancy, too.

All the candidates say they would pressure Superintendent Clifford B. Janey to fulfill plans for improving student achievement and renovating school buildings. "They think his timeline is too long," said Abigail Smith, coordinator for EdAction, a grass-roots organization that fields candidates for the school board election. "They want to make sure his goals are implemented and implemented on a faster timeline."

An innate challenge lies ahead for the 15 candidates: playing up their ability to introduce change amid some mammoth obstacles as the board's future existence is in doubt.

Besides having to answer directly to the council and Congress, the elected school board has watched as its authority steadily eroded.

The first strike came in 1995, when the federally appointed D.C. financial control board replaced the elected school board with a handpicked board of trustees.

The elected board resumed when the financial control board went out of existence in 2001, but the school system's budget remained under the authority of the city's chief financial officer.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) failed in 2000 and 2004 in his attempts to take over the school system. However, through council vote and a referendum in 2000 he was granted temporary power to appoint two board members to two-year terms and two to four-year terms. The law expires in 2008, when voters are to start electing all nine members again.

The city also shifted some state-level roles -- including oversight of the funding formula and verification of student enrollment -- from the school system to Williams's new State Education Office.

In 2003, a federal judge hearing a class-action suit filed by parents of disabled students agreed to shift control of the $60 million-a-year special education transportation program from the school system to an independent administrator. Spurred on by the fatal shooting of a student inside Ballou Senior High School in Southeast Washington, the council moved school security last year from the system to the police department.

And last week, council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) introduced legislation to put school maintenance workers and custodians under the authority of the city's Office of Property Management. The move was prompted by complaints that many schools were unable to perform such routine tasks as replacing toilet paper in bathrooms or changing burned-out light bulbs.

"Enough is enough," Brown said in an interview. "Every child deserves at least the basics."