The Women’s Club has been thanked and so you for being here. I want to express my gratitude to all the candidates for their willingness serve and for their participation in these forums.
For
those of you who don’t know me, I have been a resident of Oak Park, since I
first came to the county 33 years to serve four UM Churches. I have lived here permanently since
1995.
Since
1990 I have been Professor of Religion at Shenandoah University in
Winchester.
My
wife is Jayne Penn Hollar, who teaches Family and Consumer Sciences at MCHS and
we have one son, Quentin, a graduate of MCHS. He is a third grade teacher in the Bronx Charter School for
Excellence in New York City.
Friends,
the choices you will make about who will serve you on the School Board are
important ones.
The
Board is facing difficult challenges now and it will face more in the next four
years. We must have in place the
kind of people who are prepared to meet those challenges.
I
believe school board members must be passionate and articulate advocates for
public education, both in the community and in our relationship to the Board of
Supervisors. I
believe I am such an advocate.
I am convinced that the health of our Republic depends upon a high
quality public school system that meets the needs of all students.
Secondly,
members of the school board should have the intelligence, wisdom, and
experience necessary to the task. As I have reflected on the role of the School
Board, I have come to the conclusion that the most important thing the School
Board does is to hire a Superintendent and, after that, to provide oversight
and support to the Superintendent and the administrative team he or she puts in
place.
If
am elected, I will bring my nearly 25 years experience in higher education to
bear in helping the Board guarantee that the Superintendent and Administration
provides effective leadership that creates an environment that fosters
excellence in our students. We must hire the best, bring out the best
in those we hire by providing professional development opportunities and through
good formative evaluation processes, and promote those who perform the best— all
without regard to race, gender, creed, sexual orientation, or personal friendships.
Providing
effective oversight is challenging because much of the knowledge the school
board members have about the school system is through the Superintendent and
staff. It is easy for the board to become only an agent of the
School Administration. But the
Superintendent and school administrations works for the School Board (as
representatives of the citizens) not the other way around. For the board to provide
effective oversight its members must seek independent sources of information
about what is happening in the schools and diligently assure that policies are
being followed.
Third,
we must have people on the school board who can improve the relationship with
the Board of Supervisors.
It
is my conviction that the School Board and the School Administration has
primary authority for managing the school budget and should have the
flexibility necessary to respond to changing conditions. Maintaining that authority and
flexibility requires that all funding decisions and the reasoning for those decisions
be communicated in a timely and transparent manner. I have much to learn about the budgeting process, but
it I have learned enough already to believe that school administration can do a
much better job of creating a budget that reflects careful planning of
instructional priorities.
Regularly missing budgetary targets and shifting resources from item to
item seems to me to reflect poor planning and breeds mistrust.
Finally,
School Board members should be people of the highest integrity. If you don’t know me well enough,
I encourage you to talk to the people who know me and have dealt with me. I hope that they will convince you that
I can be trusted to be honest, open, and fair. I assure you I will strive to be all that.
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