I extend my most sincere thank you to the 67 people who donated $2,709 to my Kent (Ohio) City School Board campaign in 2001, to my volunteers and to my supporters. We all made a good effort, but in the end the power of incumbency was challenging to overcome. We made a good showing nonetheless. Here are the official results of my race for Kent City School Board in 2001: KENT
CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT BOARD OF EDUCATION
See also the precinct-by-precinct results below. Our campaign message still holds true even in defeat. Our children in the next half-century will indeed live through the continuing tense transition to a post-petroleum economy with oil production decreasing by 2% a year after its peak soon after 2010. They will experience a dramatic increase in the earth's temperature -- the largest global temperature shift since the last Ice Age -- of 4 to 11 degrees F by the year 2100. Impending water shortages across the country in the next decade are to be one of the first challenges of this increase in temperature. A one degree warming in the last 20 years has already had a dramatic impact on our ecology still little noticed by many. Due to these challenges, we MUST thoughtfully examine the curriculum we choose for children in our schools. Civic and ecological education are of critical importance to our students' futures. How effectively do we include these on a day-to-day basis? Providing an education that encourages students to be prepared for their challenges is our responsibility. Are we really doing that? How do we know? Students become citizens by their participation in our civic processes. We must strive to teach our students to be citizens and not just spectators and consumers. I still support the school board actively soliciting ideas from students about what they need from their school district. I also continue to support school board meetings with open community involvement and participation throughout the entire meeting. We must continue to stress and support the development of critical thinking in our students even in the face of state-mandated proficiency tests that encourage the district and our teachers to teach to a test more and more in order to maintain funding. This is a difficult issue, but one we must face with wisdom and boldness. The ability to think critically is one of the best skills we can help develop in a student. And, we must have schools free from commercialism! I still support the enactment of a policy for the Kent City School District banning commercial advertising and market research in all Kent City Schools. Schools are a place to build citizens, not consumers. We continue to need strong voices for democracy in our schools, because the educational classrooms are where democracy begins. I strongly encourage others to take up the cause and run for political office. The question we all need to address as citizens is WHEN we will each run for office, not whether or not we will run. Democracy does not survive by the actions of others, but by our own actions. We each have the ultimate responsibility. The Kent City School District includes 17 precincts in the City of Kent, five in Franklin Townhip, the Village of Brady Lake, Sugar Bush Knolls Village and Streetsboro 4-A.
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