Letter: Bizarre way to choose a board president

At the most recent District 211 board meeting, we saw board members do something that every district student is told not to do: blurt out answers.

The question the board members were answering was "who should the president of the board be?" The reason they were blurting their answers was because of the bizarre method used to elect the board president: board members nominate candidates for board president; then, each nominee receives an up-or-down vote in the order they were nominated and the first nominee to receive a majority of votes is elected.

This bizarre process gives the nominee who happens to be nominated first a substantial advantage in the election. Knowing this, two board members blurted out their nominations for president at the same time, so no one knew how to impartially decide whose would be voted on first. The decision was eventually made to break the tie alphabetically.

While some decision about who was first had to be made, it seems bizarre that the prevailing method is to see who has the fastest reaction time and break ties alphabetically as if this were a game of Jeopardy and not the governing body of the largest high school district in Illinois.

It wasn't always this way. In previous board officer elections, there would be a roll call vote in which each member says the name of the candidate they would like to hold each office.

This method of election puts all nominees on an equal playing field, does not depend on irrelevant factors and promotes collegial debate over fast tongues. I would propose a return to the old system, with the caveat that the board hold multiple ballots, with the lowest vote-getter being eliminated each time until one person has received a majority of the votes.

Gabriel Classon

Palatine