By Michael D. Clark
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Carroll Roberts, the superintendent of schools for Saint Bernard-Elmwood Place, is running for the board of education in the Southwest School District where he lives. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

ST. BERNARD - At times, people wonder if Carroll Roberts needs a hobby.

The 65-year-old superintendent at St. Bernard-Elmwood Place, in his 36th year of being a public school educator, is running for political office for the first time.

Even though Roberts leads the 1,090-student district just north of Cincinnati, the Harrison resident is running Tuesday for a school board seat in Southwest Schools in western Hamilton County.

He is not alone among Greater Cincinnati school administrators and teachers.

A handful are running for boards of education seats in their home districts despite the hours they already put in at their jobs. They can't be accused of moonlighting for extra pay - most school board members earn $50 to $80 per one or two monthly meetings - but rather a desire to help improve their home districts.

DUAL ROLES

Nearly 20 percent of local school boards include at least one member who is either a current or former school administrator or teacher. According to a 2002 survey by the Ohio School Board Association, 12.9 percent of Ohio's 3,418 school board seats were held by current or former school administrators and 4.5 percent were held by current or former teachers. Under Ohio law, it is illegal for a school administrator, such as a superintendent or principal, to hold a school board seat in the same district where they are employed due to conflicts of interest.

"It's very simple," says Roberts, who admits to getting quizzical looks when he introduces himself as a Southwest school board candidate in his neighborhood. "I want to serve."

Mount Healthy Superintendent Dave Horine is familiar with those looks. While assistant superintendent for Mount Healthy in the 1990s, he simultaneously held a school board seat in his home district of Winton Woods.

Horine resigned from the board in 1998 when he was promoted to Mount Healthy's superintendent position. But Winton Woods resident Lori Handler, Mount Healthy's director of elementary instruction, still sits on the board.

Mount Healthy's business manager, John Pennell, a former school administrator for the city's schools, is a candidate for Fairfield's Board of Education.

"We'll sit around and talk about how nuts we all are," says Horine of Mount Healthy schools administrators' penchant for spending their free time either working on or trying to work on other district school boards.

"When you live in a community and care about education you naturally feel like you have something to contribute," says Horine, a Winton Woods native and 27-year-veteran educator. "Still it's pretty rare."

But not as rare as one might think. Officials at the Ohio School Boards Association say 13 percent of Ohio's 3,418 publicly elected school board members - in 612 school districts - are either current or former school administrators while 5 percent are either current or former teachers.

Roberts is one of four Southwest candidates - the others are Jeffrey Biddle, June Merten and Sandy Stephens - running for three open board seats. He says he devotes so much time to running the St. Bernard-Elmwood Place district that "I haven't had much time to door-to-door campaigning."

Roberts says he has the blessing of St. Bernard-Elmwood Place's school board to seek office. If elected, he says he will not cut back on the time he spends in the district.

The head of Greater Cincinnati's largest school system - Cincinnati Public Schools Superintendent Alton Frailey - is no stranger to wearing two school hats at once. Before coming to Cincinnati in 2002 he served on the school board of his home district (Cypress-Fairbanks, Texas) and was area superintendent of the Spring Branch school district. Both are near Houston.

Pennell, who is joined in the Fairfield school board race by John Lawson, Terry Senger and Nancy Wenning, said his campaigning is often done in the early morning, largely because of the demands of his full-time job at Mount Healthy.

He typically works a 10- to 11- hour day, then spends an hour or more each evening with Mount Healthy's levy campaign committee. Each morning, after he delivers his USA Today route, he distributes campaign literature. That leaves him with about three hours of sleep each night.

"I'll be glad when the election is over," he said.

Sue Kiesewetter contributed. E-mail mclark@enquirer.com