Candidate for
Board Member; Sycamore Community School District

The Sycamore School District has maintained an Excellent rating on the Ohio report card for the last three years. This has been accomplished despite changing criteria. Most difficult for the Sycamore Board of Education has been meeting increased state and federal mandates, which come with inadequate funding.

The Board has attempted to find ways to maintain the highest rating from the State and yet keep per-student dollar costs down. I have requested a complete audit of our staffing to determine possible cost savings while maintaining a high quality educational system. Since 83% of our budget is dedicated to staffing and fringe benefits, these two areas are the center of my attention. For schools, as for many Americans, health care costs have skyrocketed.

During our last contract negotiations with teachers, health insurance was a critical and controversial issue. The increase in per staff costs equaled nearly a 3% increase in salary. The Board attempted to address this increase with several innovative proposals that would help decrease costs for the district and staff while maintaining the benefit levels the teachers demanded. Improving our current staff wellness program, that promotes healthy life choices, is one of the ways we are hoping to reduce need for expensive drugs that drive the cost of health care upward. Additional compromise from the board and teachers created opportunities for savings. Nevertheless, insurance cost increases are still a major concern to both parties and most school districts.

Many Americans struggle with weight, lack of exercise, and inadequate nutrition. Our children are experiencing problems with obesity and health issues associated with being overweight. Juvenile diabetes and even Type 2 diabetes, which is normally associated with adults, are creating a near epidemic for our children. Sycamore has recently developed an important new wellness program for our students, patterned after our very effective staff wellness program.

This wellness campaign is a relatively new look at how we engage our youth in health and physical fitness. We are currently developing a program that looks at the whole child, including a typically rapidly changing lifestyle. Our food service department is undergoing significant changes. We are moving away from just preaching healthy eating on one hand to taking steps to challenge poor food choices in our lunchrooms, classrooms, and vending areas.

Sycamore nurses are collaborating with our food service department to develop a new look at what our children consume during school hours. They are scrutinizing snacks and party foods brought into the classroom for special events, vending machine choices, and even bake sales held in buildings during school hours. They are challenging students' poor food choices while providing information to help students make better choices.

It is the function of the Board of Education to provide our students with a foundation of knowledge and skills that will make them successful throughout life. This goes beyond the standard educational thinking to which we have grown accustomed. In order to make this happen we need to enlist the help of our parents and community. Our emphasis is on analysis, decision-making, problem-solving and critical thinking. These are high skills and they will require the support and cooperation of our families and our community.

Therefore, we need to find innovative ways to increase communication among all parties that impact our children. We have a good grasp of what colleges expect of our students, but we need closer ties to our business community. We need to know what business leaders expect of our students and what they need from the workforce. This will allow us to provide curriculum choices to those who enter the working world directly from high school as well as those who choose to further their education.

The process of communication has to be a two way street. The Sycamore district has to stay sensitive to the demands of both the business world and to higher education. While the Sycamore Board of Education does an excellent job of preparing our children for the world after high school, it can and should continue to work to improve that record.