I appreciated the chance to speak with teachers and hear some of their concerns, and wish there was more time for active interaction with the audience after the forum. There were opportunities for each candidate to share our backgrounds, platforms (see mine at the upper right on this page) and qualifications, as well as our views on the teacher quality and student assessment, and the challenges ahead with declining enrollment within the District.
As for my particular delivery, I told the teachers that I continued to be concerned about need to focus on the bottom line of education: delivering resources to the classrooms where learning takes place. This includes the Board's public duty to being accountable with resources so the right decisions can take place to make Hopkins schools attractive to students and families. I asked them what they needed to be more effective and what they were willing to do to advance the cause of education in the District.
My goal for Hopkins School Board are:
- Open, Transparent Governance: Open up the process so more transparency, interaction, and communication occur and issues are discussed openly and there are no surprises about the challenges we face. There is a great tradition of excellence in Hopkins Schools: we must serve that legacy with more public engagement.
I applaud the belated effort this summer to begin internet podcasting and broadcasting on cable TV of the regular meetings of the Hopkins School Board. Moving ahead, we can do better with timely and broad distribution of the actual minutes and agenda of School Board meetings. We can also expand the public comment period of our board meetings to include discussion with the board instead of a one-way venue. I have read other public schools' board minutes that are almost scandalous in their level of detail and acknowledgment of contentious issues under consideration. We need to open up. - Accountability with Resources: wisely spending the public resources we have in any given year is, in my view, THE primary responsibility of the School Board. The previous Board ignored this responsibility over the course of several years and broke a public trust. It will take time and effort to restore this trust. My experience shows this can be done, but trust must be earned. The cuts of the past year are not in keeping with Hopkins tradition of excellence: they have impacted teaching and learning at every level in an effort to quickly get beyond a situation that took years to develop. Building a foundation takes time and effort.
- Smaller class sizes and smaller school communities. I offer a benchmark to assess my performance if elected to the School Board:
classroom sizes will be closer to 20 than to 30 in Hopkins Schools.
I could play it safe and say class sizes with be closer to 25 than to 30, but without exception all the scores of schools I've worked with the past seven years - rural and urban, suburban, poor, rich, public and private - ALL have class sizes closer to 20, and they do so with fewer resources. My commitment is to put Hopkins Schools on a performance track to open new smaller schools to meet INCREASING demand.
I feel I have an obligation to apply my skills, knowledge and experience to build Hopkins Schools in an era of rapid change and competition. My family has been part of this community for 80 years (starting as bakers in Robbinsdale), and I want all children to have the benefit of an excellent education for years to come.
(The teachers also have good taste in laptop computers: Apple! Every five to six years since college I've gotten a new computer, and it has always been a Mac.)
