In a school system with more than 1 million students, just over 5,000 moms and dad citywide cast a vote last month to elect parents for community education councils that represent them.

The straw-poll vote, which for the first time was entirely online, drew a remarkable 20,000 fewer parents to participate than it did in the previous ballot, in 2009.

What’s more, a do-over prompted by parent complaints about limited access to the online poll brought out a paltry 2,786 voters.