To the Editor:
Vicki Divoll of the Chilmark FinCom has just written a letter to The Times which clearly, passionately, expresses her disappointment when an MVRHS School Committee member refuses to explain her position on a turf-related vote. This tight-lipped committee member is described as “our elected representative.”
How I wish there were such a thing as “our elected representative” on the MVRHS School Committee.
In fact, there has never been a directly elected representative to the MVRHS committee. You run for a local elementary school committee, and then you may or may not find yourself on the MVRHS one.
In my experience of more than 40 years watching elementary school committee elections, most of them uncontested, rarely if ever do high school issues come up.
So we have a regional committee composed of people who are elected to a local school committee, and then, as an additional responsibility, may be chosen — not by the voters — to serve on the MVRHS School Committee. Never have any of these people even been able to simply be on the MVRHS committee without also being on an elementary school one, the All-Island School Committee, and maybe a few subcommittees.
So yes, Vicki. Yes to elected representatives. I wish we had them. But even more, yes to elected representatives who need to answer constituents from every part of the Island.
Maybe I’m dreaming, but possibly directly electing representatives to the MVRHS School Committee would entail some very healthy and helpful discussions, connecting voters all over the Island to their wonderful MVRHS, whatever type of field these young people get to play on.
Peter Palches
Oak Bluffs
