How The NR Teachers Union Decided To Endorse Candidates Lieffort and Cook-Shannon For School Board

Note: The information published below was forwarded to me by a member of the New Richmond community. The source of this post believes it is important to get the facts out to the public explaining why the New Richmond teachers union decided to endorse two specific candidates in the April school board election. The source of this information pointed out the need to counter the anonymous misinformation and falsehoods being posted at the ontheborderline.net (OTBL) blog site out of Hudson.

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JPN
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Submitted: 3/1/2006:

At the regular January NR teacher's union meeting, it was suggested that the group consider endorsing candidates in the upcoming primary for the school board. The discussion focused on being apprehensive about offering full-blown public support for candidates because it had "backfired on us" in the past. Interestingly enough- the two most recently supported candidates were Bill Brennan and Judy Remington. While both of those board members do have some residual support from a minority of teachers who voiced that they feel angry with what happened to former administrators, the union voted narrowly NOT to endorse ANY candidate until the membership could be presented with information on each candidate.

Every member of the union was invited to attend a planning meeting to decide how to gather information from each of the 6 candidates. After the first meeting, it was decided to organize one on one conversations between the candidates and a union representative. The entire membership was notified that these conversations were to take place AND they were asked to send any questions they would like presented in the conversations. Additionally- the entire membership was invited a second time to attend the second planning meeting before the interviews.

The questions sent in by the membership were sorted and synthesized into five questions: What is the role of the school board? What is your definition of a quality education? How do you measure a quality education? What are your short and long term facilities goals for the district? The community and union are aware of conflict/division on the board. What can you do to help this situation? Each of the 6 candidates was called personally in addition to receiving a written invitation that included this list of questions to prepare before the interview.

Finally, the entire membership was invited to attend the interviews. The nine volunteer teachers spent over 7 hours interviewing each of the candidates. At the conclusion of the interviews, before any discussion took place, the teachers took an informal straw poll voting for "the two candidates you feel would best represent the needs of our children, students, staff, and community". It was unanimous: Andy Lieffort and Deanna Cook-Shannon. At this point, the group discussed the strengths of every candidate and prepared to present the information gained in the interviews to the entire membership.

The group also decided that they would not release the names of the recommended candidates until they had listened to the candidates at the scheduled candidate forum held at East Elementary. They believed it was important to wait until each candidate had every opportunity to share their ideas and withhold final evaluation until after that meeting. The group met one final time after the candidate forum to determine if anyone's impressions had changed. They had not.

Every teacher received a brief written recommendation from the committee the Friday before the primary. The committee also invited every teacher to an informal Q/A session held at the East Elementary media center in case they wished for clarification or to challenge the recommendation. Nobody sought clarification and nobody challenged the recommendation.

The NR teacher's union met this afternoon. The circulated agenda included reference to the school board candidates. A representative from this volunteer committee presented the information learned from the interviews to the membership. A motion was quickly made to endorse Andy Lieffort and Deanna Cook-Shannon. Discussion that followed included several references to the strengths each of these candidates in addition to a few concerns about the alternatives.

One teacher reminded the membership of how endorsing candidates has not traditionally worked in our favor in the past. Another questioned what the membership and the candidates served to gain from endorsement. Another couple expressed concern about the current behavior of the board and how they hoped to add members that could make a positive change. (One voice represented the majority on the board, one represented the minority).

When the discussion ceased, the vote was taken. The full room overwhelmingly voted to endorse Andy and Deanna. It was not unanimous- there were a handful of 'nays', but when the teachers left the room, there was no doubt about who they hoped would lead the district into the future.

The NR teachers are formally endorsing Andy Lieffort and Deanna Cook-Shannon for the April 2006 NR School Board election because they have demonstrated a clear understanding of the educational needs of our students, they understand current academic curriculum and program strengths and weaknesses, they have a firm grip on both immediate AND long term facilitates needs, and they understand the importance of keeping quality staff at every level to ensure the success of our students.
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