For as long as anyone can remember, the path to the West Chester Area School District school board led through the Republican Party.
A GOP endorsement was the ticket to primary and general-election victory. That may have changed Nov. 8.
An improbable coalition of moderate Republicans, Democrats, and independents, saying the school board had been taken over by right-wing, anti-public-education forces, decided to fight back.
They put together a group that included parent activists and three sitting board members who said they no longer felt at home in the Republican Party. They organized a write-in campaign that garnered 37,252 votes for six candidates - 43 percent of the total, not counting absentee and military votes. The laborious process of tallying the write-ins began Friday.
Leaders of the group West Chester VOTE believe conservative Republican officials are more concerned with keeping taxes low than with supporting students. And they say party leaders and school board members with tea party and right-wing Christian conservative affiliations are exerting undue influence on the board and Republican Party.
As Exhibit A, they cite a February 2009 newsletter posting by Sean Carpenter, a school board member, Republican committeeman, and executive board member of the Independence Hall Tea Party Political Action Committee.
"This is how we will take back the Republican Party for conservatism," Carpenter wrote after he and three other conservative Republicans won the Republican nomination for the West Chester board.
Carpenter credited a religious conservative group headed by Chester County GOP committeewoman Gwenne Alexander.
"It is only with her group's guidance that we succeeded," he wrote, referring to Chester County ACTION (Americans for Christian Traditions in Our Nation). "This is only the beginning."
West Chester VOTE members say the posting reflects what has happened in the local Republican Party over the last few years as moderate Republican school board members who refused to take a no-tax-increase, no-teacher-salary-increase pledge were denied party endorsements.
School board president Rick Swalm said he was turned down for the party's endorsement earlier this year when he wouldn't sign on. He became a West Chester VOTE candidate instead.
