Efforts to add a ballot question in November’s election to determine if Baltimore City voters support a change from the current appointment system of school board commissioners to a mixed board of appointed and elected members failed in the General Assembly session.

Parents, community and education activists now look for alternative means, such as collecting signatures to bypass the legislative process, so they can place the question on the 2008 presidential election ballot.

Linda Muhammad, a founder of Parents Organizing Parents and a leader in the push for an elected school board, said she has been advised the move is possible. But in an interview Tuesday, Donna Duncan, the state’s election management director, said questions and referendums regarding state laws can be added to the ballot only through the legislative process — unless a measure has already passed, and then citizens can collect signatures for a repeal vote.

Senate Bill 782 passed in committee and on the floor by a vote of 46-0, but the crossfiled House Bill 1316 died in the House Ways and Means committee last Thursday.

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Joan Carter Conway, District 43; Verna Jones, District 44; Nathaniel McFadden, District 45 and Catherine Pugh, District 40, sponsored SB 782.

Muhammad said the majority of the Baltimore City delegates — including Jill Carter, District 41; Cheryl Glenn, District 45; Curt Anderson, District 43; Frank Conaway Jr., District 40; Nathaniel Oaks, District 41; Barbara Robinson, District 40; Carolyn Krysiak, District 46; and Melvin Stukes, District 44 — supported the attempt to get the partially elected school board question on the ballot for this year. But the measure did not have enough support to get the bill out of committee for a vote in front of the full house, Muhammad said.

Stukes said he understands the frustration with the current school board. He said accountability is crucial, and that it may be time to pay a professional school board.

“The skills and talents aren’t there,” said Stukes, a former tax auditor. “Just being interested in education is not enough. I firmly believe the majority of the board doesn’t have the necessary management skills.”

The Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners is one of seven appointed school boards statewide, one of which (Queen Anne’s County) is transitioning to an elected board. The other 17 local boards of education are elected. There are no hybrid boards composed of appointed and elected members.

“We need to put the parents’ voice into the education of their children,” El-Simms said. “This is about accountability and power. Right now, the school board isn’t accountable to the parents because they don’t have any power. An elected school board, even a partially elected board, shifts that balance.”

rcassie@baltimoreexaminer.com