Candidates Speak At Chamber Forum

All four incumbents and two of the four challengers for Quinlan School Board positions spoke Tuesday night at the Lake Tawakoni Regional Chamber of Commerce political forum.

No candidates appeared from the Quinlan City Council races. The Cities of West Tawakoni, Union Valley and Hawk Cove will not have elections since they had no contested races. The City of East Tawakoni was holding its monthly council meeting at the same time as the forum. A separate forum for those candidates was scheduled to be held Thursday night.

All four Quinlan School Board incumbents whose terms will expire are opposed by challengers. In Place 1, incumbent Kevin Fritch will face off with Paula Reeves. For Place 2, incumbent Michelle Harrison is opposed by Sherri Bostick. The Place 3 job is held by Kenny Stone. He is challenged by Dale Sikorsky. The Place 4 one-year job choices are incumbent Todd Darter and J.R. Watson.

Bostick and Watson did not attend the forum.

Each candidate gave biographical information and reasons for seeking the position.

Fritch spoke first. He said he and his wife had been married 29 years and had two children, both of whom graduated from W.H. Ford High School. They also have a grandson.

He has served on the school board for 12 years and has been employed by Vaught Aircraft of Grand Prairie for 20 years.

"There have been so many changes," Fritch said of the time he has served on the board. He pointed to improved scores in reading and math as progress in the district.

Fritch said that the change with the most beneficial impact might have been the hiring of Supt. Micheal French, a theme that ran through many of the speeches that followed.

His opponent, Reeves, said she and her husband would soon have been married for 15 years. They have a son who graduated in 2003 from W.H. Ford High School, a daughter in the eighth grade at C.B. Thompson Middle School, a son at Joe Martin Early Childhood Center and another son who is two years old.

She said she was a stay-at-home mom who was involved in two Parent-Teacher Organizations on district campuses. She had served several years on the Panther Athletic Club board, including one year as president. She also had served as a Quinlan Education Foundation board member.

Reeves said she thought volunteering was very important and believed that it was important to bring her insight as a mother to the school board.

Harrison said she and her husband had been married 30 years and had three children graduate from Quinlan schools and had grandchildren attending district schools.

As a board member for 12 years, she said the district had taken many strides forward during that time. Harrison said that hiring Supt. French was a big step for the district and felt it was ready to rise to the next level. She said he was innovative and his perspective was on the students.

Stone who serves as president of the board has been a trustee for nine years. He and his wife have three children, two who graduated from the district and a third who will graduate this year.

He said that he felt education had been shortchanged in America. "I am excited about what is happening," he said.

He said when he first took office, there was a division in the community. "We needed a superintendent to bring the community together. That is what Larry Johnson did."

Stone said the district was now ready to take the next step, "educate our children to the highest degree."

Stone said if standards were not set high enough, "we might as well stay home." He pointed to the new CSCOPE curriculum implementation as a means to do that.

He said he would like to publicly clear up an issue that was brought up to him, the continued employment of Supt. Johnson after the hiring of Supt. French.

Stone said Johnson was under contract with the district. "We were going to have to pay him anyway." He said Johnson continues to work for the district although he is not paid. Johnson was put in charge of the lawsuit the district had filed in connection with construction at W.H. Ford High School. Stone said Johnson spent many unpaid days giving depositions and working on the suit. He said there were three people in the district who were familiar with the construction issue. One died and one left the district for another position. That left only Supt. Johnson.

"We had two quality people without egos. They made it work," he said of French and Johnson working for the district at the same time. He also questioned what type of individual the district would have secured if it had tried to hire someone in the middle of the school year. He said dedicated superintendents did not quit in the middle and would work to the year’s end.

On the state’s mandated school policies, Stone said, "We are a local whipping post for what the state and federal governments do." He said they had about 95 percent control of education. "We have five percent wiggle room, and we need to wiggle all five percent."

Sikorsky spoke next at the forum. He said he grew up in Quinlan and had attended Quinlan schools since the second grade. He served in the Navy for six years and had been married for 19 years in July. He and his wife have two children.

Sikorsky said he went to work for the sheriff’s office when his military service ended. He said he worked currently for the Farmers Branch Police Department.

"I think I bring a lot of energy and a fresh perspective on things," he said of the reason he was seeking the position.

"My personal feeling is we need to get some teachers and coaches that care," he said. "Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a lot of great ones," but he said there were others that needed to change.

Stone asked Sikorsky where the district would get the money to acquire the teachers of whom he was speaking.

Sikorsky answered that teachers were like cops in that they knew when they took the jobs that they were not going to get rich.

But he said the district should expect 100 percent out of teachers, regardless of how much money they were paid.

Darter said he enjoyed serving on the school board. He said he graduated from Quinlan High School in 1980. He and his wife of 20 years have two daughters. He has been employed by Raytheon for the past 26 years.

"I enjoy this community," Darter said and noted the differences now and when he was growing up.

He said that what he wanted to bring to the table was the idea that the district had to give the children a better education.

Darter said the district had to get good teachers "who can teach and get them going. We have a lot of good ones."

"We have to educate our kids," he said. "That should be the Number One goal of anyone setting on the board."

Chamber Executive Director Cindy Johnson moderated the forum. A small crowd attended.