Voucher Emails

I submitted a Public Records Request to see all emails that were sent to or from any school board member regarding vouchers during the week leading up to their most recent meeting. I received a 253-page PDF. I tallied up the emails, and you can find some data below.

District | Representative  | Anti | Pro | Replies | Voted
---------|-----------------|------|-----|---------|-------
       1 | Tony Bostic     |   64 |   1 |       0 |  Yes
       2 | Dan Cash        |   61 |   1 |       0 |  Yes
       3 | Dennis Driggers |   62 |   1 |       0 |  Yes
       4 | Josh Brown      |   62 |   1 |       1 |  Yes
       5 | Margie Johnson  |   69 |   1 |       0 |  Yes
       6 | Jay Galbreath   |   63 |   2 |       1 |  Yes
       7 | Melissa Wyatt   |   62 |   1 |       8 |  No
       8 | Donna Clements  |   62 |   1 |       1 |  Yes
       9 | Claire Reeves   |   62 |   1 |       1 |  Yes
      10 | Eric Welch      |   62 |   1 |      26 |  No
      11 | Tonja Hibma     |   64 |   1 |       1 |  Yes
      12 | Drason Beasley  |   62 |   1 |       2 |  Yes
       Total constituents  |   75 |   2 |

Anti = Number of emails the representative received encouraging them NOT to rescind the anti-voucher resolution

Pro = Number of emails asking them to rescind the anti-voucher resolution

Replies = how many people the representative replied to

Voted = If "Yes", this representative voted to rescind the anti-voucher resolution. If "No", they voted not to rescind it.

I asked for emails from Monday, October 14 through Monday, October 21. If the representative replied on Tuesday, the 22nd or later (and I know some did), those are not counted in these totals. I asked for this timeframe because I was more interested in any correspondence prior to the meeting.

Sixty-one people emailed the whole board while many others emailed just one representative, leading to the discrepancies between the board members' totals.

It is important to note that the public had approximately 72 hours of notice about this vote.

There was only one constituent who emailed the whole board asking them to rescind the anti-voucher resolution. That was Barb Sturgeon. Of course, she is a county commissioner from District 8. She said that she spoke for the residents of her district, saying that "the majority of them did not support [the anti-voucher resolution]." Notably in her email, Ms. Sturgeon misspelled Eric Welch's name as "Welsh." He replied to her, "My last name is spelled Welch, with a CH like 'charged' and not an sh like 'shackled.'" She replied, apologizing for the misspelling.

For the majority of our school board representatives, if they are being influenced to vote one way or another, it's clearly not via emails from their constituents (75-2), nor via the folks who are willing to show up to speak at a school board meeting (8-0).