It turns out that Gary Westorff has me beat in his giving to school board candidates. His wife also gave Josh Gorham $500 making their joint contributions an impressive $1,500 for pro status quo candidates. If you don’t count the money I’ve spent on myself so far I’m behind Gary in funding candidates. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
So far the fundraising champ is Sally Trnka who has cash on hand, as of the latest report, of $3515 almost the equal of everything I’ve spent on my own campaign. She’s raised a close to a record $6100 to date for a Duluth School Board race. Not bad for a novice.
This is the first year I haven’t sent out a fundraising letter. I have about three weeks of literature to pass out so I’ll wait and see if my appeal (in the door to door piece I’ve been handing out) pans out. I need to make one more $400 dollar expenditure which will extend my lit dropping by another three weeks after that. I’ve got time to consider sending out a letter although my blog and the website serve that purpose as well.
My eight loyal readers have nearly doubled as the election season has started kicking into gear. I have, until 2016, always believed that voters make rational decisions when given ample information. Duluth voters have had forty years to size me up. They know my eccentricities. If I’m not reelected I’ll be relieved of the great burden of undoing the damage past school boards have done.
A critical email asked me recently what I had done for the Duluth Schools since my return to the Board – what educational initiatives I’d brought to the table or supported.
Before I jot down my reply I’d just like to note that for the first two years I was on the Board some modest inquiries for public data by Art Johnston and me brought about a two year Kangaroo Court persecution that embarrassed all of Duluth based on charges championed by the folks who are behind the candidates I haven’t been donating to. I was pretty busy defending the 2017 election results for those two years and had little time to visit schools or do anything useful. Nonetheless:
I pushed for more transparency in School Board actions leading to the videotaping of all of our meetings for the public to see at their leisure rather than at 4PM when many citizens are still at work.
I successfully helped replace rubber tire mulch that had our parents in a tizzy and giving them one more reason to open enroll their students elsewhere.
I helped conclude the best teacher’s contract possible with the very pro union majority on my school board.
I have cheered on Administrative attempts to better coach teachers.
I helped champion the work of Alanna Oswald which brought about the state’s intervention and funding to greatly help one of our struggling schools and, while they were at it, realigning our long neglected curriculum a requirement imposed upon us by the state of Minnesota.
I unsuccessfully, but forcefully, pushed for a more equitable spending of our funds for the western schools particularly the Compensatory Education funds meant for children on free and reduced lunch. Half a million of this is spent on eastern schools that do not generate the funds because they have a much smaller population of impoverished children.
I also tried to sell our costly empty old schools to get more money for our classrooms. Again, the same folks championing the candidates I have not been contributing to did everything they could to prevent these sales. This cost ISD 709 about $20 million dollars and cheated our students.
Oh to be in a majority! Check out the lawnsigns in my front yard……..when the construction crews leave.
I know, I know. You can only vote for two of these At-Large candidates. But you can’t miss with any of these three.
