Thank You

I want to thank everyone who voted to re-elect me to the Round Lake Area Schools Board of Education yesterday. I was very pleased to get over 1,000 votes with some pretty low turnout (countywide I would add). I greatly appreciate your support, I will do my best to continue to look out for you, the taxpayer, while striving to improve student achievement and maintain our fiscal discipline.

I’m also pleased to have Tammie Hanna and Denny Driscoll join the board as new members, I’m certain they will help bring some fresh new ideas. Also congratulations to my good friend Nanci Radford who was also re-elected to the board, she is a tireless advocate for kids and brings a point of view to the board we are in frequent need of as a professional who works with at-risk kids every day.

Tonesha Baker whom I have come to greatly respect for her views and the thoughtful ideas she brings won her first election after being appointed. Tonesha always envisions a district where we can do much more than we are presently and we need people with a vision like that on the board.

Annette Negrette-McGinley was also elected after being appointed. I have had my moments of opposition with Annette and I challenged her filing because of some signatures I thought were invalid (which I promptly withdrew mid-hearing when the folks who signed came and testified). I am hopeful that in the future we can work better together — disagreement and debate are important facets of any board — I have often pointed out the pathway to disaster in RLAS was paved by 7-0 votes. I just hope that we can disagree without being disagreeable and realize that positions are just that, positions, they shouldn’t be taken personally.

Ann Welk was resting at home — the only person who didn’t have to run this year (lucky her!).

Thank you again, I look forward to serving out over the next two years of my term.