Access Research NetworkDarby school board voters, clearly weary of a rancorous battle over a controversial science policy, swept incumbent trustee chairwoman Gina Schallenberger out of office Tuesday and replaced her with a new trustee opposed to the so-called "objective origins" policy.
Erik Abrahamsen, whose campaign included his opposition to the policy, was elected to the board along with incumbent Bob Wetzsteon. Wetzsteon and Abrahamsen pummeled Schallenberger and a fourth candidate, Robert House, who had hitched his campaign to Schallenberger's, supporting objective origins.
Wetzsteon drew 607 votes and Abrahamsen, whose daughter took part in a student protest against the objective origins policy, garnered 595. Those figures doubled the votes for Schallenberger, who got 295, and House, who pulled in 301.
The Darby School District has been in turmoil all year, ever since local minister Curtis Brickley proposed the objective origins policy to the trustees. The board held what seemed like endless public hearings on the policy, but the lines were clear from the start - Wetzsteon and Lovejoy opposed the policy, while Schallenberger, Doug Banks and Elisabeth Bender favored it.
Those three gave preliminary approval to the policy in February, but the board opted not to push for final approval until after the election, which was driven by the origins debate. Proponents of the policy said it was a promising way to study criticisms of evolution, while critics believed it to be a back-door effort to bring creation science to the classroom.
The policy's passage had provoked discussion of lawsuits against the district - Darby parents Rod Miner and Marty Stomberg had said they would sue the district if the policy got final approval, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State also looked into the possibility of a suit.
Miner was thrilled Tuesday night.
"I am delighted and it will be really nice to see a spirit of team playing return to the Darby school board," Miner said. "We worked so hard to stop this thing short of a lawsuit. I am just very, very pleased."
The election will clearly alter the entire discussion's landscape, and it seems likely that the objective origins policy is doomed.
The board had also recently been fractured as it looked for a new superintendent to replace the outgoing Jack Eggensperger, who decided to quit in part because of the science policy. The board repeatedly closed meetings regarding the superintendent candidates and was sued by the Ravalli Republic newspaper for allegedly violating the state's open meeting law.
In that case, Ravalli County District Judge Jeff Langton recently slapped the board with a preliminary injunction prohibiting trustees from erasing minutes from those closed meetings. The Republic specifically identified Schallenberger in its suit, claiming she closed the meetings illegally.
File Date: 5.5.04
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