Occupation
Software Engineer
Qualifications for office
I am a parent of three students in the district, leading to lots of different interactions with the school district. I have a history of working with many stakeholders to properly define and solve difficult problems.
Education
BS in Computer Science & Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh
As a resident of Richland for 17 years, all 3 of our children are attending PR schools. My wife and I are both products of the public school education system, so we understand the value of a strong public school system.
Through my work experience, I have worked to identify the proper stakeholders for projects, to identify and fully define the correct problems, and then to work with the stakeholders to address as many of the problems as possible, without exceeding our budgetary and time constraints.
While attending or watching school board meetings over the last few years, I have noticed that poorly defined problems (or the wrong problems) are being addressed. I would aim to remove politics from the school board decisions.
The first step is to try to be as responsible as possible with the existing budget and funding, by examining the existing expenditures to look for efficiencies. I believe that the school administration has already done this, decreasing the projected shortfall by a substantial amount.
Next we need to look for ways to increase revenue. For example, we can look at increases in fees, advertisement and sponsorship agreements, and grants.
After that, we can look at tax increases. No one wants to pay more in taxes, but we may have to increase taxes so that we do not negatively impact the services and learning opportunities for the students or the value added to the community by a high-achieving school district, an increase in property values.
We should provide a safe and inviting forum where the school staff can share their expertise and knowledge with the community, where the community can ask questions and voice their concerns, and together, we can reach common ground.
We should not provide an adversarial environment where stakeholders are disrespected or ignored. We should not construct a policy (or set of policies) where the school board members claim to be the sole qualified "experts."
As far as the library policy, we could go back to the prior library policy that was working, allowing concerned parents to work with the school librarians to limit access to materials that parents felt were objectionable. This limited the burden placed on the parents and staff.
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