Tom Pomeranz’s “My View” column (The Cary News, May 14) addressed the recent N.C. appellate court’s decision that overturned Judge Manning’s earlier ruling in the WakeCARES lawsuit. The appellate court’s ruling grants authority to the Wake County Public Schools System to assign students to Mandatory Year Round schools without parental consent. Mr. Pomeranz believes that WCPSS should have this authority. I disagree and so do thousands of Wake County parents who signed petitions asking that MYR not be forced upon us.

According to the N.C. appellate court ruling, “If plaintiffs disagree with mandatory assignment to year-round schools, their remedy lies with the electoral process.” Mr. Pomeranz, who writes that he supports the appellate court ruling, cites this same excerpt, but then goes on to argue that plaintiffs, in fact, should not seek to change the electoral process. Again, I and thousands of other parents disagree.

Today’s district-based electoral process for school board seats does not allow voters to seek the remedy recommended by the court ruling. We need at-large school board elections.

At-large elections will allow some or all school board candidates to run in their district but be subject to election by all Wake County voters. The “stacked deck” described by Mr. Pomeranz already exists. Consider MYR assignments within our school system. Districts 4, 5 and 6 (all heavily concentrated in Raleigh) have been assigned just two MYR schools among them. District 8 largely covers Cary and Apex and has been assigned nine MYR schools. In fact, almost all of the MYR schools have been assigned to districts outside Raleigh. Sounds like a stacked deck to me.

Mr. Pomeranz worries about a school board elected by an “activist electorate” and composed of board members who “reflect [the electorate’s] desires.” That seems like representative government to me!

Today’s entirely district-based elections deny voters the right to such representation. The school board decides where and when every child goes to school, and they do so with impunity. Remember, today we vote for only one of the nine board seats, and many children are assigned to schools outside our voting districts. Many people cannot even vote for the person who represents the district where their child attends school!

The school board has already declared that neighborhood schools do not exist in Wake County. School board chairperson Rosa Gill said, “There are no neighborhood schools in Wake County. The schools belong to the county and the system is countywide.” If the system is countywide, then elections for those who govern the system should be countywide as well.

The towns of Apex, Cary, Garner, Holly Springs and Rolesville have all requested at-large school board elections (note that these are the people the “deck” is stacked against). Citizens groups including DavisAndHighHouse.org, WakeCares, KeepLocalSchools and TakeOurSchoolsBack also support at-large elections. County commissioners already are elected countywide. Municipal governments in Wake County include at-large representatives. Seventy-two percent of North Carolina counties already have at-large school board elections; we should too.

With all of this support for at-large elections, who’s standing in the way? The answer is a handful of people who are supposed to represent us — some of our very own state representatives and state senators from Wake County. Our Wake County delegation must enact legislation to enable the electoral reform we seek. Seven of the 13 delegation members refuse to support such legislation at this time. Think about that, seven people are denying more than 800,000 Wake County citizens the voting rights they deserve. For more information, including whether or not your state representative and state senator support at-large elections, visit takeourschoolsback.org.

Our school system is in trouble. Eighteen percent of Wake County students have fled to private or home schools. Parental support erodes when the school board chair tells parents there are no neighborhood schools. In 2006, the school bond barely passed with 52 percent approval. What happens when the next bond fails?

We need new leadership on our school board, and we need leaders who will be accountable to all of us. Let’s go to the polls in November and take the first step toward that new leadership — voting for those legislators who will support at-large school board elections.