BOE Elections for Dummies

How does the Board of Education get elected? I had no clue but wanted to know since I was told that there would be BOE elections in November. After searching the web and talking to Town Clerk Andy Garfunkel here's what I learned:

• There are nine members of the Board of Education who are elected by Norwalk residents.
• Each member's term is 4 years. The terms are staggered with elections occurring every two years so the whole board is not up for election at one time.
  
• Four of the nine members of the BOE are designated as members-at-large. At large members are voted on by all Norwalk residents. All four members-at-large seats are up for election this year.
  
• Five members of the BOE are elected through district elections. There are five districts in Norwalk, A through E. The district members were elected in 2007, so the next election for their seats will occur in 2011.
  

(Here's a list of the districts in case you didn't know:

District A -- Central Norwalk
District B -- South Norwalk
District C -- East Norwalk, Strawberry Hill and Wolfpit
District D -- Cranbury, West Rocks and Silvermine
District E -- West Norwalk, Brookside and Rowayton)

The current BOE members are:

• Chair Rosa Murray (Democrat): Member at large, 2005-2009*
• Shirley Mosby (Democrat): Member at large, 2005-2009
• Greg Burnett (Democrat): Member at large, 2005-2009
• Amy Jimenez (Democrat): Member at large, 2005-2009 (took over the term of Bruce Kimmel)
• Susan Hamilton (Democrat): District A 2007-2011,
• Migdalia Rivas (Democrat): District B, 2007-20011
• Glenn Iannaccone (Republican): District C, 2007-2011
• Secretary Jack Chiaramonte (Republican): District D , 2007-2011
• Vice Chair Jody Bishop-Pullan (Democrat): District E, 2007-2011

*last elected term.

The highest vote getter in the 2007 BOE elections was Glenn A. Iannaccone with 1,820 votes cast. So a relatively small number of voters can have a significant impact on who gets elected. The BOE is reponsible for overseeing our school system and managing a $150 million annual budget. With a responsibility like that more people should be voting. How do we get more people to participate?

Over the course of the next month, I'll be interviewing all the candidates. Feel free to send me questions that you think they should answer. I'll do my best to put it to them.