What I believe? 1.I believe education begins and home and we need to get more parents engaged in their children’s education. i.e. PTA, parent-teacher involvement. 2.I would like to see a line item budget. I would like to know what and where we are spending money. I would like to know when we go over budget in areas and where we take the money from to cover the overage. Are we spending our monies wisely and are we missing simple areas to save money? Are we doing a pet project and pulling money from something else? 3.I believe we do a lot for our gifted children and our special needs children, but our average child gets left out or only gets the bare minimum. Most children do not go to or finish college. We need to educate these children to be able to get jobs right out of school or help them get some of the specialized certificates that can provide them with a career right out of the gate. a.The CEO program is a great program on teaching children to start their own business and learn how that works. They use businesses in the area and teach at these businesses. Kudos to the school district on having the insight to get involved in this program. b.I would like to see more programs where the businesses in the community would be more involved in the education of our children. c.I would like to get unions and organizations more involved. Get the unions that hire welders, carpenters etc, to come in and help teach these classes and/or donate some funds to help pay for them. These children are their future employees and members and they should invest in them. d.I would like to explore ways and ideas to get our high school students started early in some of these programs where they can get specialized certificates such as Medical Assistant, Dental Hygienist (just as an example), get on an apprenticeship program or on a co-op type program where, by the time they graduate high school, they are well on their way to these certificates and can be employed soon after graduation. 4.Teacher’s Salaries? That is a hard one. We have very strong unions in this town. Are these unions going to have to make concessions? If they want to look out for their own, they absolutely will. But will they? I am not sure. With all the financial problems, they will either have to make some concessions or sacrifice some of their younger teachers. Which are they willing to do? I would hope they would look out for the group as a whole and bargain in all of their teachers’ best interests. Every time a teacher is laid off, the students lose and the teachers as a group lose. We will see what happens. I, for one, would pay more insurance to keep my job and ensure my fellow co-workers can keep their jobs. But, at the end of the day, they may need to pay more of their insurance premiums to help the district and our children. Are they willing to do that? That will be up to them to decide. I would do my best to negotiate in the best interest of the community as a whole. 5.Janitors? I am not in favor of outsourcing these jobs. I think when we have these staff members with that much close contact with all our children, it is important that we have total control over who these people are. I would definitely make sure we are getting top performance from these staff members. I have worked over the years with these ladies and gentlemen through the band and can tell you, with the exception of one or two, they are top notch people. But I do feel at the end of the day, they are going to have to make some concessions as well. Are they willing? 6.Administrative staff salaries? I personally think all Admin salaries should be frozen for at least a year while we work this out. I am a little disappointed that the board has not already done it. How can we ask the community to pay more taxes and not freeze salaries? This, at the very least, is a show of good faith. I think this should go for secretaries and all non union members of the school district. If they expect the citizens to pay more, then they too should show that they are willing to make sacrifices also. 7.Uniform? I am not for school uniforms. That code is not enforced any better than the old one was. I am not sure how you can justify a dress code to the students and not the same dress code to the teachers. I understand that the teachers’ union will not allow that. If that is the case, then we shouldn’t demand that of our students. 8.Zero Tolerance? I am not for zero tolerance I do not endorse fighting, but sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and not be a victim. Zero tolerance creates victims in my opinion. We don’t need any more victims. We need people who stand up for what they believe in. Go back to the old days. The one that throws the first punch gets suspended. Calling the police over a fist fight is a little over the top. If you want to stop bullying, you are fighting a losing battle. It is human nature. There is only one way to stop being bullied - stand up for yourself. 9.School Lunches? I believe that it is the school districts’ responsibility to offer a nutritious edible lunch. It doesn’t do any good to serve a lunch that the kids will throw out or that is not enough to get these growing kids through the day. It is not the job of the school district to decide what is acceptable to eat. That is a parental decision. Offer them a balanced meal and other options. When I was in high school, we had cup cakes and candy. We were not fat. It is not so much the food they eat. It is their activity level that is lacking and then the districts cuts gym. Makes no sense there. 10.Tax referendum? I can’t answer that for you. I am going to begrudgingly vote for the referendum because I believe in our children’s future and our community. What incentive do you have if you are on the fence? The leaders have dug in and said raise taxes, but don’t touch my program or salary or benefits. No one has given us an alternative other than raising taxes. The teachers unions have not offered any concessions to help the situation, nor any of the other unions. The school board has not done anything but cut. What about some pay freezes, at the very least? If you want the citizens to pay more, why don’t they take a hit too? I have heard administration say “This tax increase is just one less Starbucks a day.” Really???? What world are they living in?? We have a lot of families in our community trying to keep their heat on right now, trying to make sure they have milk for their babies. You really tell them it is just one Starbucks a day?? How out of touch and insulting is that to us? Shame on them.
Those are a few of my beliefs. I also believe our children are our greatest asset. They are our legacy. It is up to us as parents and grandparents to sacrifice for their future. Lord knows our parents did. I believe we need to stop teaching to test scores and start teaching our children to think for themselves. Anyone can regurgitate information, but can they take that information and understand it, build upon it and take it into the future? Can they look at a problem and solve it without knowing a lot about it? That is what we need in this world ….problem solvers. People who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, look at a situation and figure it out. We cannot do this if we are only taught to spew out facts. We need to encourage critical thinking and creativity. You cannot judge a child by a test score. I have 3 children - 2 are grown and one graduates in May. They all did very well on the standardized testing, but I didn’t stop there. I engaged them at home. I made them figure things out on their own. I taught them to have an opinion (sometime to my dismay) and back it up. Education does not stop when our children leave the building, but it is up to the parent to know what their child is being taught, put it in perspective, give them their opinion and make sure they understand. We cannot completely educate our children without engaging them. It takes three people in the game - student, parents, and teacher. It is up to the parent to keep it all pulled together.
I hope that the community comes together on this crisis. I hope that the administrators and the unions realize that slashing programs is the beginning of the end of our city. We need to all stop just looking out for ourselves and look at the big picture. Everyone needs to hurt a little on this, everyone except the ones we are here for--- OUR CHILDREN. How can the administrators and unions say they are here for our kids and dig in their heels? This pointing fingers at each other and blaming has to stop. They all make good money and have good benefits. If you are truly here for our kids, show us that before there is no school district left. If you figure, why should I worry? I am close to retirement. I’ll just ride it out, then shame on you.
The above is just a portion of my beliefs. If you agree, then great, vote for me. If you don’t, then maybe I am not your candidate because I have no intentions of being on this board and not being myself. I am going to stand up for what I believe in. I am not going to sit on the board for 4 years and be somebody who I am not. My past record as Band Parent President and member proves that. I didn’t always agree with others, but we worked out what was best for the kids. If you want somebody that is always going to agree with everything you think, then I am probably not your man. But I will listen with an open mind and hopefully, find a way to unite the community to the common goal of doing what is best for our kids and our community.
on February 28, 2015, 11:49 am, in reply to "