Gov. Martin O'Malley will decide next month whether Harford County will become the only jurisdiction in Maryland - and one of the few in the nation - to have a school board made up of both appointed and elected members.
The General Assembly, in its recent session, passed legislation allowing what is called a "blended" school board, thus putting the governor in a position to decide between the will of the Harford County delegation, which unanimously supported the bill, and the governor-appointed Harford County Board of Education, which has asked O'Malley to veto the bill.
A spokesman for O'Malley, Shaun Adamec, said the governor has not decided whether to sign the measure.
Harford is one of five Maryland counties in which the governor appoints the entire school board. County Republicans have long pushed for an elected board, only to be stymied in an overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature.
Blended school boards are "pretty rare" in the United States, said Reginald Felton, director of federal relations for the National School Boards Association. The Alexandria, Va.-based organization keeps no figures on the number of such boards, he said.
Most districts go one way or the other, Felton said, and when boards are blended, "the appointed members generally seem to reflect the policies of the officials" who have selected them.
The measure would expand the school board to nine members from seven. County voters would choose six, one from each council member's district, and the governor would appoint three others.
"That way, voters in every part of the county would have their say," Republican Del. Susan McComas said, but if elections led to insufficient minority representation or other disparities, "the governor could rectify matters."
The bill would phase in the changes during the next two election cycles, with the first three elected members taking office next year and the second three elected in 2014.
The school board, which warned of "practical difficulties in implementation" of the bill, sent O'Malley a letter earlier this month requesting a veto.
Board member Mark Wolkow said the bill was too vague in defining how the changes would be implemented. For instance, he said, it calls for eliminating three appointed seats in 2010 without clarifying whose seats those should be or how the decision would be made.
