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"Why Me?
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This information is provided by the candidate | ||
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"Why Me?
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This information is provided by the candidate | ||
Tuesday, November 4th. Election Day. It seems very personal to me. Ironically, serving on the school board is not a personal thing at all. It is something that I want to do for 15,000 children, for hundreds of district employees, and, in maintaining the quality of our schools, for our whole community.
Why? Why would a person choose to spend time away from her family to participate in a system that can be like the Queen Mary, ponderous and difficult to redirect? Why put myself in a position where there simply is no way to make everyone happy or to meet every need?
Because someone who cares a lot needs to do it, and someone with knowledge and experience can do it best. I care about children and parents, about every anecdote I hear, about every story of a struggling child. I care about the hundreds of people who work for the district--who work for us, and I want them to be valued and respected. Children are not a product. Employees are not cogs in a bureaucratic machine. The district has a human face, and anyone who serves on its board must always be able to see it.
We must be able to see it even when we face challenges and make hard choices. We face many challenges all the time. Right now, class size reduction--reducing primary grades to 20 students or less per class--is creating tremendous staffing and facilities issues, including the possibilities of year-round multi-track school, sixth graders moving to middle schools, a parcel tax, the purchase and placement of modular classrooms, and the re-opening of closed school sites. No matter what decisions the board makes on these issues, there will be some people who will not believe they were the best decisions, and for them, they might well not be. That is a very sad thing, and it is important for board members to recognize the impact that their decisions will have on individuals, as well as on the district as a whole.
The mix of cultures that we have creates other challenges and opportunities. We must have board members who remember the common humanity of all of us, and who seek to build bridges between cultures and promote acceptance of one another.
There are many other issues. I hear about them as I visit schools, and as I talk to people in neighborhoods. People are concerned about basic academics, special education, daycare, transportation, bilingual education, school safety, and a trend toward pushing children to grow up too fast. They think there is too much change, or the wrong kind. Some believe things need to change more.
To all this, I bring seven years’ experience as a parent volunteer--classroom aide; parent-faculty group president; grants committee chair; member of district committees (including Budget Advisory and Standards and Assessment); and over two years regularly attending district board meetings. This experience gives me a sense of the big picture, along with an awareness of the diverse needs of individuals.
So what would I do about all those issues? I would consider what is best for children and our community. For example, if year-round multi-track school causes more problems than it solves, then I could not support it. If moving sixth graders to middle schools allows them to be nurtured, supported, and given a program truly appropriate to where they are developmentally, then I might support it. But on these, as on other big issues, I will ask what the community thinks. This is a great community. Together we can build a great school district.
