Class President by Appointment

About 200 fourth, fifth and sixth graders at Washington Elementary School in Santa Barbara made posters, gave speeches and voted for their student officers. Their principal then overrode two of the results. The sixth-grade presidency went to the runner-up, who happens to be the principal’s own child. The office comes with perks, including leaving class for meetings and giving the graduation speech, which is plenty of motive for a parent.

Principal Arielle Curry doesn’t dispute it. Her letter to families admits she led the deliberations after the vote that reversed two outcomes, and she apologized for “allowing this practice to persist.” She also concedes that the process “lacks transparency and fairness,” a polite description of a coin flip with a thumb on it. The Independent put the word “rigging” in its headline, and I’ll skip the argument over vocabulary.

When adults rig an election run by children, and the institution answers with a leave of under two weeks and a vote of confidence, the kids absorb the real civics lesson: the count belongs to whoever holds the pen. Trust is already thin, with only 27% of Americans telling Gallup in June that they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in public schools. Ms. Curry shouldn’t be allowed to run that school.

I come at this as a suburban husband, a father of three sons, a small business owner and a coach. I worked full time through college, and nobody handed me a title. I’ve coached over a decade of youth football, rugby and high school track, and I know how to lead by example.

The district’s own rule is plain. Assistant Superintendent John Becchio told the Independent that the district expects the candidate with the most votes to win. A fourth grader could run that system with a pencil. The response sounded different. A spokesperson called the matter a “personnel matter” and declined to share details, and when Ms. Curry returned, two assistant superintendents said they were confident she can lead this work. People the Independent interviewed say whoever first raised the issue has been verbally attacked.

Aristotle saw the stakes more than 2,300 years ago. In the Nicomachean Ethics he wrote that “we become just by doing just acts,” and that habits formed in youth make all the difference. Marcus Aurelius put it to himself bluntly: stop describing the good person and be one. A sixth grader who watches the runner-up take the crown learns that the count matters less than who controls it. Adults who absorb that lesson graduate to larger stakes. In Los Angeles, former elected official Mark Ridley-Thomas drew 42 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him in a scheme that traded county support for benefits for his son. Nobody is saying a sixth-grade election equals a bribery ring, but the instinct of my family first and the rules second looks familiar at every scale.

I’m tempted to say Ms. Curry has a future in the Democratic Party. I don’t know her registration, so call it sarcasm. The punchline comes from California’s record. Rod Wright, an Inglewood Democrat, was convicted in 2014 of eight felony counts of perjury and voter fraud for claiming as his residence an Inglewood property where his stepmother rented a unit, so he could run for a state Senate seat, and he drew 90 days in jail. A recording made in 2021 and leaked in 2022 caught Los Angeles Council President Nury Martinez, a Democrat, and colleagues strategizing to protect their own districts in redistricting, and Martinez resigned. Then came Proposition 50, where Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “We will pick up five seats with the consent of the people.” Voters approved it with roughly 64% and a federal court upheld it. It was legal, popular and a mid-decade redraw built to win. The principal of any school who rigged this vote deserves the same verdict.

The state’s ballot-petition business adds to the docket. Federal prosecutors say James Brass and two circulators handed out stolen voter identities on Skid Row and paid people to sign them onto petitions, and Brass has pleaded not guilty. Brenda Armstrong, a longtime circulator, pleaded guilty to paying people to register and drew 18 months of probation. The releases name no party or campaign, but I can guess who benefited.

Some will call this a student council race and point to the apology. The apology came only after the leave, and her own word, “persist,” hints that this was not the first election to go that way. Her supporters, including an anonymous community letter, say many in the school community think highly of her. People can be well liked and still wrong. The child who got the title is a victim too, handed a crown without asking for it.

Santa Barbara can fix this without a task force. Seat the actual winners, or rerun the vote with the adults kept away from the ballot box. Write the rule down before the next election: most votes wins, two adults other than the principal count, student observers watch, and totals go on the wall. Louis Brandeis called electric light the most efficient policeman. The school board should commission an independent review of past student elections, since Ms. Curry’s own letter says the practice persisted, and then publish it. Protect whoever raised the alarm. Then replace the principal. In my business, an executive who rigged a result for a relative wouldn’t get a welcome-back email. They’d get a cardboard box.

The kids at Washington Elementary will remember this election long after they’ve forgotten long division. The district gets to choose the memory: the adults got caught and fixed it, or the adults got caught and walked. The clock doesn’t care whose kid you are, and neither should the ballot box.