Question:

I have two children in the Mars Area School District, and I am increasingly dismayed by their large class sizes (They have routinely had 25-26 children in a class during their elementary years), and the current school board members' refusal to replace retiring or resigning teachers under the guise of "fiscal responsibility," which then leads to a vicious cycle of increasing class sizes. As your children enter Mars, you will see that 25+ children in an elementary school classroom is far too many for any teacher to meet the learning needs of each individual child. The teachers in Mars are the backbone of this District, and we are currently asking them to be superhuman.

If you get elected, I think you will find that there is a current disconnect between those with children currently in school (who support low, year-over-year tax increases to fix the years of fiscal mismanagement of prior school boards that refused to raise taxes even in the face of historic growth in the district) and those who no longer have children in the schools and may be on fixed incomes who wish for their property taxes to remain stagnant. How do you intend to balance these two competing interests of taxpayers you will represent? You seem to have both listed as goals, which makes for nice campaign promises but has proven hard to execute in reality. Thank you for taking the time to consider my question!

My Response / Answer:

Thank you for your thoughtful question and for taking the time to learn about me. 

Balancing taxpayers with the realities of our growing school district are vital to our collective success as a community, especially our children.  With the most recent building expansion plan being approved this week, projects like these will help alleviate the space concerns and increase classroom space.  Ultimately, I see this as a top priority toward appropriately balancing the teacher / student ratio.  We need more space, and we will need more teachers & staff. 

The costs associated with this growth are aspects we must all simply face.  Fiscal responsibility, I see, is ensuring the taxpayer dollar is utilized efficiently and with scrutiny.  I see success as this: if we have high scholastic achievement alongside a leading low cost per student, then we are achieving our goals as a board and community.  It is not always that simple, but it can occur with a committed board and one that is open with the community.  It takes engagement from everyone.

I am here, as parent of two young children who will be in the school district, to face these competing realities.  The goal is to ensure that the Mars Area is a place where our youth have access to top-tier educational and extracurricular activities that are second to none.  I believe with this, the taxpayers, students, teachers, staff, and community as whole will benefit mutualistically.

Parents, students, and teachers are the eyes and ears of the on-going changes and provide a live voice for the associated successes and shortcomings.  A high engagement, combined with an open-minded school board would yield the most desirable results for our students and teachers. I aim to listen intently and provide a voice that encourages thriving student development and teacher support- while putting my finance background to use in the cost considerations for taxpayers in the district.