Any school board knows that when the decision is made to close a school, it often involves a heated debate and a potentially explosive board meeting. That’s exactly what happened in early August at an East Aurora School Board meeting in suburban Chicago. The emotion-filled meeting demonstrated the need for an accurate voting system and method to structure public debate.

The Beacon News reported that after weeks of examining the success of the 1-year-old Magnet Academy, the school board had planned to put the school’s future to a vote during the Aug. 3 meeting. But that vote never occurred. Instead, dozens of passionate parents, school administrators and teachers filled the meeting room and flooded out into the hallway to fight to keep the school for gifted students alive.