Or is it?
Last month’s election for JCTA’s political action committee (PAC), better known as Better Schools Kentucky, was not devoid of excitement and intrigue, that’s for sure.
If you missed it, you are probably not alone. Only those who are familiar with JCTA bylaws would be aware that one would have to call the JCTA office to get the results. So we wanted to make it easier for you.
At one point, candidates asked for a recount and they were told that there was “no opportunity for human error,” only to find out later that an errant letter “e” in one of the write-in candidate’s names caused everything to shift. Instead of explaining all of the anomalies that the candidates inquired about, JCTA’s response was to declare a different winner than was originally reported.
You don’t say?
In fact, of the four candidates on the ballot, none of them won by majority — either time — so the BSK election committee had to hold a special meeting to determine if a run-off election between the two top vote-getters would be necessary.
They decided it was. The run-off starts Monday, January 11 at 6 AM and ends Wednesday, January 13 at 4 PM. JCTA members should keep a eye out for the link to vote.
After all of these anomalies, how can JCTA members be assured that the election results are reliable? What’s different this time? Imagine how Americans would feel if Trump and his people were the ones conducting the Presidential election and reporting the results.
Why not give BOTH of these winners a seat at the table? Of the 12-person committee, 10 of the seats are nominated by President Brent McKim. We couldn’t help but notice that 8 or 9 of the 10 individuals put there by him are white. Instead of using his nominating power to ensure a diverse committee, he’s forcing these two exceptional Black women to duke it out in a run-off for the only member-elected seat in this year’s BSK election.Since a run-off is likely to expose more embarrassing glitches to the union’s archaic electronic voting system, why not just add another seat to the committee and make it 13? It’s still not quite representative of the district as a whole, but it’s a start.
Rank and file teachers who demand better endorsements and more democratic representation are circulating a petition encouraging JCTA President Brent McKim to step down. After his election in 2001, he was instrumental in removing term limits, enabling his staying power. According to the petition,
The 20-year tenure of current leadership is based on the undemocratic elimination of term limits by this leadership in the early 2000s.
RaShauna Tyson, a math teacher at Frost 6th Grade Academy, has filed to challenge McKim in the upcoming election. Kumar Rashad, Breckinridge Metro teacher, has filed to run for Vice President against long-time incumbent Tammy Berlin. Tyra Walker, a teacher at Roosevelt Perry, is running unopposed in her bid to retain her seat as JCTA Secretary. Manual history teacher Randy Wieck has filed to challenge incumbent Maddie Shepard for JCTA Treasurer. You may recognize Dr. Wieck’s name, as he has been an outspoken critic of McKim for his failure to act on addressing pension mismanagement.
The BSK run-off elections start Jan. 11 and end Jan. 13. The general election begins January 27, at 6 AM, where numerous regional positions are also on the ballot.