Spell Wins Student Seat On Board Of Ed

Jacob Spell will take the empty student seat on the Board of Education next year, filling senior Kimberly Sullivan’s position, after a straightforward election process.

The Hyde School sophomore was elected to the non-voting student position with 29.3 percent of the high school student vote, after the election committee tallied votes in City Hall Friday evening. He ran against six other students for the position, and will join current student member Coral Ortiz on the board in the fall.

This is the second year the Board of Education has had elections for non-voting student members, after a charter referendum changed the structure of the board in 2013. Last year, two members, one junior and one senior, were voted on. Each year after that, students vote for one rising junior to join the board.

Spell was the only candidate to attend the vote count, watching city and school officials total ballots by hand for more than five hours in a conference room in City Hall. He sat quietly with his mother and three brothers, staying calm even as committee chair Suzanne Lyons typed the numbers slowly into an spreadsheet.

He made a short speech after his win, to applause from officials in the room. ​“I’m ready to represent New Haven,” he said. ​“To all New Haven Public Schools students, I’m ready to represent you. Let’s work together to make a change.”

All the public high schools across the city held elections Thursday and Friday, with students voting at their own schools. A total of 2,830 students voted, compared to last year’s 3,469.

Learning from last year’s mistakes, the election committee created a process that was smooth and fast. Instead of staying up until 12 a.m. counting votes like they did last year, committee members began at 3 p.m. and left the building by 8:30 p.m. (Click here for a document of the results.)

Spell won 29.3 percent of the vote, beating out six contenders. Runner-up Career High School student Yeimy Morales won 17.6 percent of the vote; Wilbur Cross student Joseph Lampo won 17 percent; and Hyde student Dwayne Carson won 13.7 percent.

Three High School in the Community students also ran for the position. Tyron Houston won 10 percent; Alondra Martinez Lopez won 7.2; and Melady Morocho won 5.2 percent.

For the second year in a row, Wilbur Cross had the lowest voter turnout of any school in the district, despite being home school to one of the candidates — again hovering just above 20 percent. The next lowest percentage belonged to Hillhouse High School and was more than double, at 41.9 percent.

Two different people counted ballots from each of 26 ballot boxes and tallied votes on a master sheet. If their two numbers did not match, a third committee member recounted to break the tie.

Three officials monitored the process Friday afternoon: Amity/Beverly Hills Alder Richard Furlow, city Deputy Corporation Counsel Cherie Phoenix and Adriana Joseph, the school district’s deputy chief of youth, family and community engagement.

This year, unlike last year, the two people counting ballots worked on the same box at the same time, allowing them to resolve discrepancies immediately, Lyons said. Ballots shrunk this year — from a full page to a quarter-page — so they would be more difficult for students to fold, sparing the vote-counters time unfolding them, she said.

Still, as occurred last year, there were kinks to the process. Some students included joke write-in candidates, inspired by the current presidential election, including ​“Obama” and ​“Trump 2016.” One student simply wrote, ​“Me.”

In the first two hours, counters had gone through eight boxes. As they got more familiar with the process, they sped up: getting to 16 in the following hour. They finally finished going through ballots just before 7:30 p.m.

“Whoever is elected has big shoes to fill,” Superintendent Garth Harries said, stopping by for part of the vote count Friday. The student members on the board have gained the respect of the voting members and are often among the most ​“mature” people in the room, he said.

Sullivan, outgoing student member and Sound School senior, sat with Spell and his family, answering questions and offering support.

Are there projects you would want the ingoing student board member to continue? Spell’s mother Martiza Baez asked Sullivan.

Sullivan said it was important to note that the process of making change in the district was a group effort. ​“This is everyone together, not just me,” she said.

Spell was the only student to create a video for his campaign, with the help of his brother. He also was the first candidate to get 100 signatures from students at Hyde and other schools throughout the district and turn them in to the committee.