I am one of the candidates running for School Board. I was not selected as one of the four candidates for endorsement. With the current budget issues, and additional cuts looming, I believe it is absolutely essential that we have people on the board who are not afraid to go against the norm and make the hard decisions. We must make cuts, there is no way to get around that. Now, the tricky part is to make cuts that will not decrease the value of the education our children are receiving I have a one year old daughter; and under current situations, I feel very uneasy about sending her to Granite schools. If elected I believe I can bring about a positive change. I graduated from Saint Louis University in 2010 with a bachelors in chemistry. I am currently looking to begin my master's program for Mechanical Engineering in the fall at SIUE. From an educational standpoint I believe we are not focusing near enough on math and sciences. Granted, with my educational background I could be biased on this issue. However I think I bring a very unique perspective to the board because of my background. I also bring experience for the fiscal side of things. I have worked for a pharmaceutical company where I ran my own department and was in charge of budgeting. I have reviewed the minutes from the past board meetings and a few things troubled me. One in particular stood out, last year the board UNANIMOUSLY voted in favor of increasing all administrators salaries across the board. My question is why on earth would you vote to increase salaries when we have a budget crisis? We need a school board that is NOT made up of retired principles and teachers. We also need board members who do not have family members working within the district. How can we expect board members to be objective and make the best decisions for students, parents, and tax payers if they are more concerned with their family members' jobs? My views are probably the reason why I was not chosen by the union. However I will not curb my beliefs to try and win favor with various groups. I will base all decisions on what I feel would be in the best interest of students first and tax payers second. I understand that many people may not like my ideas and positions on many issues, and that is fine. I would like to urge those people however to take a serious look at other candidates who are running that are not incumbents. We need serious change with our current board.
If anyone has questions or comments I would love to hear them. My email is gravilst@gmail.com Thank you.