Why I’m Running for Westminster School Board

It is important to our communities that we provide public education that is of high quality and at an affordable cost. Having both my children in Westminster School, being strongly committed to public education, and valuing what is best for all kids and the community, I have long wanted to serve on the School Board. Between helping found and direct Compass School and not wanting there to seem any conflict of interest between my role there and school policy, I have stayed out of Board politics. Seeing no one stepping forward to fill the open position on the Board this year, and with my involvement with Compass reduced to an advisory capacity, it seems the time I step forward to help our district manage the many challenging conditions facing our local schools.

I have been a teacher, school leader, coach, and business person. I went to public school my whole life, and directed a non-profit, Education by Design, that worked with public schools all over New England and New York to develop classrooms that helped all children develop the “knowledge, skills, and dispositions to succeed in school and in the world beyond.” From these experiences, I witnessed both the great possibilities of public schools in serving a diverse population and being accessible to all children and families and the great frustrations of a system that too often didn’t work for all kids, that had bureaucratic obstacles to doing what was best for kids, and, most tellingly, led to a nationwide phenomenon of more than 30% of our children not graduating from high school.

I have seen many great teachers and school leaders who have created schools that are highly successful, and I have also seen how poor leadership or an incompetent teacher can wreak havoc with children’s opportunities.

I know it is easy to criticize schools from the outside, and I know how easy it was as a consultant to tell schools and teachers about best practices for effective schools. To make these ideas real and respond to a community need, I agreed to help found Compass School to demonstrate what might be possible to create a school where every child could find success. Since the inception of Compass, we have tried to be a model for what is possible in public education, aiming to serve a population reflective of our local demographics (including serving students with special needs), and to work within per child costs equal to public schools. Now in our 9^th year, we have learned that while it may be impossible to create a perfect school, there are great possibilities to create learning communities that can serve a diverse population, create a respectful school culture, be economically efficient, and prepare students for success in higher education and the world beyond school.

As the Westminster schools face funding limits, more rigorous expectations, increasing federal and state mandates, and changing conditions at our area middle and high schools, we need to not only work hard but we need to work smart. I hope my experiences as a parent, teacher, learner, coach, and community member can well serve the Westminster district in using our resources to assure a quality school for all the children in our district.

You can read about my experience in education and elsewhere on my resume. I am more than happy to talk to you or respond to email if you want to learn more about me and what I hope I can bring to the board. Please feel free to call me at home, 869-6103 or email rickwestboard@yahoo.com.