Elected by E-mail

Get a start on campaigning for the school board of tomorrow

By Paul Courter

Paul Courter is executive vice president of a St. Louis-based company and a newly elected school board member in Clayton, Mo.

When you're running for election to the school board and every vote counts, don't forget to campaign in cyberspace. At least that's what I found when I campaigned -- and won -- my board seat this year.

Historically, voters don't turn out in great numbers for school board elections in years when there is no presidential race, and the difference between winning and losing can be just a handful of votes. In my case, the 1995 election in Clayton, Mo., saw five candidates vying for two open seats on the board. And although the parents of our 2,400 students are vitally interested and involved in the schools, the election had no burning issues to offer and no tax increase proposal to heighten the interest.

Indeed, voters had good reason to be content with the schools in this progressive town, the St. Louis county seat. Our schools have garnered five National Excellence in Education Awards from the U.S. Department of Education. Eighty-two percent of our teachers hold advanced degrees, and 95 percent of our students go on to college. An outstanding reputation attracts new families to the district. And just last year, Clayton voters acknowledged the school district's positive role in the community by supporting an $18 million bond issue, including $4 million for technology.

As a first-time candidate, I faced the challenge of convincing voters in a relatively contented constituency that my qualifications were unique in a way that was important.

Breaking out

My first challenge was breaking away from the pack. School board candidates in our district have always used the traditional methods of campaigning: door-to-door canvassing, yard signs, and direct mail. This year, the campaign was especially civil; candidates even agreed to share the cost of delivering literature to every resident in a single packet. All campaigning was to be positive, professional, and probably ineffective in separating anyone from the pack in the minds of voters.

I believed I was uniquely qualified to serve the district. My platform was based on three areas of experience that could be a strong contribution to the school board: my business and financial experience in a high-tech company; my role as a college instructor in strategic planning and international business; and my extensive activities as a volunteer in the community's youth sports program.

As a marketing executive, it is second nature to me to use the best resources available to communicate my message, whatever the situation. So, in addition to the usual campaign techniques, I called upon a tool I use at my office every day: my computer, with its access to the most popular on-line services, including CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online. In a community where many voters are highly educated professionals, why not send E-mail messages just as I do to my clients worldwide?

With the help of popular on-line subscription services (many of which allow you to search subscriber/member lists), I located Clayton voters who were on-line at their own computers and sent out electronic mail introducing myself as a candidate. Over the next few weeks, I received many on-line responses from people who wanted to discuss the school budget, discipline issues, homework, and many more interesting subjects. Even students responded, including one bright sophomore with some interesting insights on tenure. One parent gave me the E-mail address of his son, who was away at college and is a registered voter. I sent that student a message, offering to send an absentee ballot.

I also used the Internet, that vast network of information sources and communications, to assist me in preparing for our candidates' night forum. Our area's major newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, had recently run a feature story on an Internet newspaper published by the sixth-graders at the Ralph Bunche School in Harlem. I signed on and accessed the school's World Wide Web site. Then I printed out the children's newspaper and took it to candidates' night. The story demonstrated the importance of keeping abreast of technology: When sixth-graders in the inner city are doing Internet projects like that, my own community could not ignore the power of this current technology.

I received an unexpected bit of helpful publicity when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sent out its usual candidates' questionnaire. I responded with some information on my E-mail campaign. Several days later the newspaper ran an article on the front page of the Metro section with the opening line "Paul Courter's campaign is wired . . . ."

Another use of technology that might have given me an advantage was my ability to use CD-ROM technology to develop a computer-generated list of registered voters for my campaign volunteers to use. This required cross-referencing two files provided from two different sources. First, I obtained the list of all registered voters in the city of Clayton from the county board of elections office. The voter list lacks phone numbers, so I purchased a CD-ROM program called Selectphone, which essentially is a telephone directory for all listings in the United States. Using merge-and-sort capabilities on the two files, I was able to come up with a list of registered voters in our area, sorted by street, with name, street address, and telephone number. This listing allowed us to divide the town into campaign sections and assign a volunteer to work each section, providing him or her with the tools to make the job much easier.

The Net result

Did my presence in cyberspace help my campaign? I won a board seat by a close margin of 43 votes. As a complete newcomer to the political process, I have to think that using the technology helped to gain some attention for my candidacy. Certainly the newspaper article was a bonus. But more important, I believe my use of E-mail struck a chord with constituents, who believe that a community that has endorsed a $4 million technology plan for a district of this size needs leadership that is comfortable with technology and its issues.

The Clayton School District is moving rapidly to apply technology. Students and teachers are taking advantage of new equipment and training provided for under the technology plan. All our school board members now have E-mail capability and use it often. (We have reviewed the application of open-meeting laws with the board attorney; accordingly, board members do not hold on-line conferences and do not vote on E-mail.) We are considering setting up a Web site to improve communications and allow for student projects, such as an electronic newspaper.

Obviously, we owe much of our progress to a forward-thinking community, which is setting high standards and supporting innovation. Our students and our educational system will be better prepared for leadership in the future as a result of the community's vote of confidence in technology. I would encourage the elected representatives of other communities to get involved -- by getting on-line.