Rapid City School Board Reform!

Even if this guy says everything is a-ok, don't buy it. It certainly isn't a-ok.



We need a school board that both will fight for fairness we deserve and are not getting from Pierre, and be more qualified to watch the store at home.

Thank you Eric Abrahamson... yet another reason we should send the man to Pierre!

If you see this petition, please sign it!

If you want to circulate one yourself, email Jeff Lang (jefflang44 at gmail.com)

Dear Friends:

Many of us have talked about the need to reform the way we elect school board members in Rapid City. Consider the following facts:

• only 2 of the 7 board members for the 2008-2009 year have been elected;
• in the last 7 years, fewer than 10,000 votes have been cast in all school board elections; by contrast, in 1990 ( before we went to district elections) more than 10,000 votes were cast in a single election that featured 7 candidates vying for one seat;
  
• in Area 2, there has not been a contested election in 14 years; if you lived in Area 2 and had a son or daughter graduate from high school this year, you would never have had an opportunity to vote in a school board election during all the years your child was in school

Clearly, it’s time for a change. A group of us are coming together to circulate the attached petition (formatted for legal-sized paper) to put a measure on the ballot to change they system. Under this proposal,

• we would have five districts and two at-large seats;
  
• districted board members would represent roughly 14,000 instead of 10,000 voters;
  
• at-large board members would be elected by all the voters in the Rapid City Area School district;
  
• voters would have 3 chances to vote every 3 years instead of 1 chance every three years;
  
• the Board of Education would be more responsive to the concerns of the electorate.

I hope you will get involved in this effort. We need 3,465 signatures to qualify this measure for the ballot. We are hoping to gather more than 5,000 signatures. If you are willing to circulate a petition, please send me an email so we can keep track of who is circulating a petition. (Petition carriers must be 18 years or older.) Please make sure that you witness each signature. When you complete a form, we will get you together with a notary to sign the back of the petition.

If you have any questions about the petition or the problems with school board elections, please let me know.

All the best,

Eric Abrahamson