I decided to go to my first School board meeting during covid when I thought the decision were hurting the kids. I thought I could have conversation and rationally explain, and they would make changes. But the Government system was in place and the following months and years things did not get better. My friends convinced me to run for school board, and here I am. Below is a little history.
My family moved back to Beecher in 2010, just before my oldest child entered kindergarten. I worked construction; building new houses around Chicagoland. We have two special needs daughters. As a family, we discussed our future, and we decided that I would “retire” and stay home as full-time caregiver to our children. This has been my life and career for the last two decades. Growing up, I never thought I could feel so fulfilled, but here I am.
We have been very involved in our local church; it’s my wife’s family church and it goes back 150 years. I’m afraid I haven’t had much time to seek out accolades or awards, between raising my girls and rehabbing our home, which we bought as an abandoned foreclosure.
At one point, we felt the need to pull our children out of the local schools and homeschool them. The first time was when our oldest was having issues that were affecting her education. We pulled her out, and found a Christian curriculum that helped her thrive. We engaged her in the local JHS sports, but we homeschooled her. She re-enrolled in Beecher High full time her junior year (would have been earlier but lockdowns). She has been on honour roll and captained the varsity golf team. I see parenting and education as primarily the responsibility of the parents, not the government. In our case, this has been born out with successful results. Who knows their kids better than their parents, and who will fight for your kid more than their parents/family?
It seems as though the school board, district, and educational system are filled with people who possess masters degrees in education, and yet, our children have suffered. At this point, it feels like the schools are against the taxpayers and parents. I see the responsibility of the school board as representing the students against the bureaucracy of the district.
It will be my job to keep the district in line, and fight for the education of our children. It will be my job to defend the economic interests of the taxpayers against the tax and spend policies of the big government education system. Every year, more and more is spent on education, and every year, our students’ math and reading scores drop. Test scores show a very narrow band of a child’s development, but it is showing that Beecher students can’t read. The last board spent enormous sums on building maintenance, infrastructure, and increasing the staff. We can debate on how much was absolutely necessary and all at once. It feels good to have the latest facilities, but our children’s education is lagging.