...........................................................

Why I Am Running...

When I started teaching in September of 1973 at the ripe old age of twenty-one, I was thrilled to be hired in Greece. Everywhere I went, from graduate school, to visiting friends out of town, I gladly fielded questions about our programs and educational structure. I was proud to join such a prestigious district whose reputation preceded itself.
The years passed, and our situation changed. The loss of jobs in the local economy has had a profound effect on everyone in the community, from top to bottom. As elsewhere, we started to encounter a variety of fiscal, social and political changes that eventually made themselves felt in our education system.
Our district began to receive a disproportionate amount of negative media attention. We were asked, what was necessary, in order to stay out of the headlines. My younger colleagues, not unlike myself when I was starting out, began to whisper questions, wanting to know what was going on, worried about the very act of being inquisitive and whether simply wanting a straight answer would get them earmarked as a “troublemaker,” or worse.
However, I know we can do better. We can accomplish this by ensuring that we work together; by pooling all of our combined experiences and ideas, we can model the behavior of improvement. Above all things, this means valuing and practicing civility, creativity, respect and hard work. Let’s shock our community with the ability to disagree, without being disagreeable. Let’s prove that we can move forward, all of us, and make this a finer district, one by one.