There are seven board members, each with three-year terms. Voters in the Iowa City Community School District will select three of those seven members – almost a majority.

In spite of its name, our district includes (from north to south) North Liberty, Coralville and Hills as well as Iowa City. That’s a lot of voters.

Most stay home.

That’s too bad. Our system is unique: public schools, the goal to educate every child, and democratic, local control. As de Tocqueville observed in his 1830s Democracy in America, “I know of no people who have established schools so numerous and efficacious.”

In 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony made the town’s officials responsible for children’s education. By 1647 the Massachusetts General Court required all towns to maintain public schools. The Boston Visiting Committee, created 1721, was the prototype for today’s school boards.

So we’ve been doing this a long time. A lot longer than we’ve been voting for a U.S. president.

Isn’t preserving this 300-year-old tradition well worth the time it will take you to get to the polls?

Take a child with you. Set an example. Show them how elections work. Make voting another “adult” activity to which they aspire.

Don’t know whom to vote for?

Two candidates are incumbents: Susan Mims and Cindy Parsons. If you like what the board’s been doing the past three years you probably want them to continue. (Plus a challenger for the third position.)

If you want a change you can pick three of the four challengers: Don Jackson, Lauren Reece, Dale Shultz and Tom Thrams.

I make no recommendations. Want more insight? Talk to a teacher.

Finding out where to vote is more complicated than it needs to be. We have two sets of polling places.

Johnson County Auditor Tom Slockett is widely acknowledged as one of the state’s most innovative and citizen-friendly county auditors. The more who vote the better he likes it.

That’s why he urged the school board to pay the modest cost (freedom is never free) of opening all regular polling places. Other school boards do it. Why not ours?

If closing and reshuffling polling places only inconvenienced, confused and discouraged voters from participating in school board elections it would be bad enough. But Slockett told the board the confusion carries over to other elections. My own experience as an Iowa City precinct co-chair supports that assertion.

Even in presidential elections low voter turnout bears witness that people have found reasons enough not to vote. Further confusion about where to do it doesn’t help.

In spite of Tom Slockett’s urging, the School Board majority decided to make it more difficult for you today. You’re going to have to make a little extra effort to find out where to go. (You can always call the auditor’s office at 356-6004.)

This is one of our most important school board elections in years. We’re writing on a clean slate. Three (rather than two) positions are up. We not only have a new superintendent, Dr. Lane Plugge, but a new UI Dean of Education, Dr. Sandra Damico. This year’s school board will confront some of the greatest opportunities – and challenges – ever.

Dr. Plugge and a majority of the candidates are reading Carver’s Boards That Make a Difference. So everything from board-superintendent relations to curriculum may be open for discussion. A good time to dust off those old school improvement ideas of yours. Come up with new ones. You may find a more receptive audience than in the past.

But start by voting.

It would be reason enough to care if it only involved the welfare and future of our school children. But the quality of our educational system affects all of us, whether we have kids in school or not. Our ability to attract top academics and business people to Iowa City. The families looking for good schools. The skills of Johnson County’s workforce. The quality of the university’s entering class.

I voted early. Because, as you read this, I am working in Sofia, Bulgaria, today. The Bulgarians also have an election coming up. And they want to know how to do it right. What laws and regulations they need regarding media coverage of candidates and issues. Political advertising. Campaign contributions.

They are excited. They want to vote. They value the opportunity. They don’t take it for granted.

Neither should we.

Nicholas Johnson is a member of the Iowa City School Board.