Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
ROSALIA – Rosalia, Malden, and Thornton voters will decide whether to re-draw its five school board districts into three on the Feb. 9 ballot.
The plan would keep all current boardmembers, but make it so one person represents each of three larger districts, along with two at-large members.
“If you have two good boardmembers in one district, you lose out,” said Rosalia School District Superintendent Rick Linehan.
The current rule is only one person from a district may serve on the board.
If approved, the three equally divided districts would represent about 360 people each. The overall population of 1,089 was used to make the boundaries, which comes from the 2010 census and encompasses the areas of Rosalia, Malden and Thornton.
“I am a hundred percent in favor of it,” said Heather Smith, school board president and 16-year member. “Good ol’ Whitman County used to be a lot of little guys living out on farms. What we have seen is districts were no longer even.”
If the measure passes, one district would cover the town of Rosalia, by far the smallest of the proposed sections, geographically. The other two districts would be one northwest of town and the other southeast.
“Malden, got decimated and it redrew our population a little bit,” Linehan said, referring to the Labor Day fire, which destroyed a majority of Malden’s homes.
If the Feb. 9 measure passes, two current boardmembers would be reclassified as “at-large” representatives.
“There really isn’t any negative part to it,” Linehan said. “School board members don’t grow on trees. This is an upside to keep a full board.”
The petition requires only a simple majority to pass.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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