School boards mainly white

Minority populations in Utah's schools continue to creep higher each year, yet school board leadership in the state remains overwhelmingly white and mostly male.

However, some leaders predict this will change. Time is the key.

Out of the state's 40 school districts and 227 local school board members, four are ethnic minorities. Forty-two percent are women.

Salt Lake City, San Juan and Ogden districts have the highest student minority populations in the state — all hovering around half. Salt Lake and Ogden each have one nonwhite board member; San Juan has two.

And though progress is slow, education observers say more will join the ranks as they work through some of the stumbling blocks many ethnic minorities face in Utah.

"To say that you need an ethnic minority to represent ethnic minorities is bigoted," said Michael Clara, a Latino Salt Lake resident who lost by one vote in last month's election to Alama Uluave, who is of Tongan descent. "We wouldn't accept an Anglo person saying that; we would go to town on them."

But Christina Morales, Ogden's new Hispanic board member, said having nonwhite members on the school boards helps give the minority community a voice.

"If you look at our school district children you see that 40 percent of them are Hispanic — there has to be someone there for them," said Morales. "I am not saying that the present board members aren't, but when the parents don't speak English it's just better for them to be able to relate to someone who is coming from the same place they are."

Women also are underrepresented on school boards.

Statewide, 58 percent of local school board members are male, counting changes made in the November election. That's a drop from 62 percent after the 2002 election.

"I'd like to see a woman on the board," said Morgan Board of Education President Earl Ericksen, who remembers only one woman ever serving in the past 20 years. "It would give us a different point of view from raising children in the home and in what they have experienced having them in the schools."

Traditional gender roles might weigh into whether women seek public office, say several elected officials, including Gov. Olene Walker, the first woman to occupy Utah's highest office.

But that's not always the case. The Duchesne City Council, for instance, has more women than men.

"So why the school board is like this," said Melvina "Mel" Tanner, who in January will be the only woman on the Duchesne Board of Education, "I don't know."