Letter to the Editor: A Look at the School Committee Candidates

To the Editor:

The Hamilton-Wenham Regional School Committee election - five candidates for three seats; whom to vote for? Each candidate has qualifications and weak points. So lets take a quick look at all five and see what shakes out.

This will be a short overview and done alphabetically. If you want more information, please go to the HWCam website and watch the two-hour video of the League of Women Voters debate.

As a starting point lets keep in mind the mission statement of the School Committee, "To educate our children (and grandchildren) to become knowledgeable, healthy, responsible and productive adults." This is what the School Committee is all about.

- has a huge background in education, both as a teacher and a researcher. She has been in business including construction, so she would be a big help in both those areas.

A negative is her reason for supporting the Virtual Department of Public Works. She thinks the School Committee and the district should stick to education and not be involved in maintenance - that the towns can do it better. 

If that were a valid argument, then the School Commitee and district should stay away from labor negotiations and other areas; they should only concern themselves with educational topics.

- has been a teacher in the district and has owned a business. However she believes that School Committee members should be able to approach leadership team members without getting permission from the superintendent. 

This is a big no-no. The School Committee has a defined role and interfacing regularly and at-will with the leadership team is not one of them.

- has a financial background and has served on the Wenham Finance Committee.

However, when he was on the FinCom, he wanted to know when he would be able to tell the School Committee what cuts to make. That is not the role of the FinComs.

During the LWV debate he was all about finance but not about education. He thought the FinComs should have a strong role in setting up the budget. Again, that is not the role of the FinComs. 

Only the School Committee has a fiduciary responsibility of doing the budget.

During his opening remarks he made no reference to his value of education.

In the Salem News article of April 28, 2012, about the candidates, he had no answer to the question of why he is running. Why are you running Brett?

- has been a teacher and is a lawyer, including some school law work.

She is willing to listen and to learn her role on the School Committee. She would be a big help on the labor contract negotiations.

- has a financial background with a strength in budget building. He did not mention education in his opening remarks.

He has lots of ideas and plans for what he would do, including running right into the business office and telling the people there what they should do.

He claims that within a year he can give us a budget we can all understand. Is that the role of a school committee member? The superintendent and the leadership team develop the budget; the School Committee asks the hard questions given the constraints of finances and the will of the community.

The real question for him is, are you running for School Committee or for the job of business manager?

And what was that body language all about during the LWV debate?

So whom would I vote for? The three candidates who are strong in education of course. They all have other strengths that they would bring to the Committee.

Why would I not vote for Brett or William? Even though both have a strong finance background that should be valuable they would be micro-managers and that style has no place on a School Committee. They did not seem to meet the standards of the mission statement.

Richard Boroff

South Hamilton