Analysis: Manatee School Board: District 4

School board races are non-partisan and contested countywide, so the District 4 race will be on every Manatee County voters’ ballot. Incumbent Scott Hopes, who was appointed by Governor Rick Scott when Karen Carpenter retired, faces a challenge from former administrator Joe Stokes.

Hopes, who did spend some time as a classroom teacher in the Ô80s and served on USF’s board of trustees, brings a wealth of experience in oversight of large financial enterprises from his background as a corporate executive and board member. When he arrived on the school board, he was immediately critical of the district for lacking any sort of coherent long-term strategy or transparency to taxpayers, noting that continually asking the public for more tax money wasn’t a viable pathway toward success.

Hopes, who serves as the board’s chair, has also played a vital role in uncovering the district’s ERP scandal, a software modernization effort that went about $12 million dollars over budget and remains riddled with problems since coming online more than a year and a half after it was promised. His extensive background in similar endeavors in the healthcare field add to a skill set that is otherwise absent on the five-member board. Considering that the ERP mess is far from over, losing Hopes could prove devastating as the district tries to move forward under the leadership of an interim superintendent.

Stokes can tout 45 years of experience in public education, including 17 years in Indiana classrooms and 12 years as a principal, vice principal and administrator here in Manatee County. For some, Stokes' close ties in a county that has long been skeptical of outsiders will be seen as a big plus, which is evidenced by his financial support and endorsements from the teachers union and the Gulf Coast Builders Exchange.

For others, however, it will be a liability. Stokes was promoted to Director of Elementary Schools for Manatee Schools under former superintendent Tim McGonegal, who resigned in disgrace in 2012, after revealing that he’d been deliberately misleading the board and public about the district's finances by hiding a multimillion dollar shortfall that he instead presented as a giant surplus. When Rick Mills became the next permanent superintendent in 2013, he opted not to keep Stokes in a key position.

Mills told me that he thought Stokes was a nice guy who was well intentioned, but that he didn’t find him qualified for the position he was in and definitely didn’t think he could fill the position as he intended to redesign it. Mills said he told Stokes that he was free to apply, but that he felt he’d be better off applying for an assistant principal position at the middle school level, which he found him better suited for. To be fair, Mills said that he’d had similar conversations with other employees, having found the district riddled with high-level administrators who seemed to have been installed chiefly for their loyalty to McGonegal and his cronies, rather than being the best person for the job.

In the years since McGonegal’s departure there’s been a lot of activism by former principals and district administrators who were very upset by Mills’ efforts toward building a meritocracy out of what had become something of a quasi-patronage system. The most troubling aspect of Stokes’ candidacy is the strong financial support from the Manatee good old boys (and girls) network that has generously supported his campaign.

The next board will have the immense responsibility of hiring the district’s next superintendent–a role in which whomever is selected will have their work cut out for them, to say the very least. For anyone who’s watched the district closely over the past decade or two, the idea of many of the McGonegal era administrators that are all over Stokes’ campaign finance reports having a friendly ear on the board during that process should be concerning.

Many voters have expressed concern over Hopes having been appointed by Scott who, as Governor, has radically re-imagined the role of charter schools in public education. They also point out that Scott has close ties to local developers like Pat Neal, which might give the politically-connected builder even more sway over matters like school impact fees.

These are valid points. However, it should be noted that Hopes already lost the only occasional ally he had on the board when John Colon was defeated by James Golden in the August election. As such, he will definitely not have the votes to move policy. He can, however, continue to be an important voice of dissent in calling a spade a spade when the sort of shenanigans that have plagued the district rear their head.

This is important because dissent is often the only way that the public becomes aware of all sides of an issue. Chummy boards rubber-stamping inept administrations have been responsible for more woeful outcomes in our local education system than any other factor from ideological crusades to developer influence. That said, it should also be noted that there hasn’t been a single school board member who’s stood up to Neal or other politically-powerful developers in any meaningful way É ever.

I’m not sure that were I to sit down and discuss policy with Hopes we’d see eye to eye on very much politically. However, the idea of him exiting the board, especially before it hires the next superintendent, makes me very uncomfortable. Without him acting as a counterbalance it would be too easy to envision the district regressing back to the dark days in which our local public education system was more of a giant trough of money for special interests than a bureaucracy that served as an effective steward of one of our community’s largest and most important collective financial investments.

Flush with an enormous stream of revenue from additional taxes, yet saddled with hundreds of millions in debt and a tenuous hold on its current state of mediocrity, the district needs competent leadership at all levels more than ever. Deep understanding of complex issues, a willingness to engage in healthy dissent and even be adversarial when needed are important dynamics of a healthy board. Hopes has proven himself willing and able in the role of devil’s advocate. Voters should think very hard about whether they’d be better off without him continuing to fill that role as the district moves forward in this critical time.