Name:
Kevin Deegan-Krause
Website(s):
http://
Occupation:
– Associate Professor of Political Science, Wayne State University
Education:
– B.A. in Economics, Georgetown University,
Previous and/or current elected positions:
– Ferndale Library Board, 2004-2009
Community involvement:
-President, Friends of the Ferndale Library, 2010-present
Do you currently have students in the district, and if so, what school(s) do they attend?
– Yes, Elena, 3rd grade, and Peter, Kindergarten, Kennedy Elementary School
We need a school district that builds the minds and hearts of our children and strengthens our community. We need a district of such excellence that it is the natural first choice for every parent in the district. We need a district with such a commitment to equity and community responsibility that others hold us up as a model. I want to be on the school board to help our community get what it needs from our schools.
Unfortunately our district currently falls short of these goals and is at risk of falling further every year. Our district needs to put more resources and attention into retention of district families. Our district needs to address the inequalities between our schools. Our district needs to behave in transparent and responsive ways that allow citizens to have their voices heard. I want to be on school board because I believe we can together fix these problems and that the way to begin is with an active, questioning board. We can make Ferndale a first choice school district, through attention to educational excellence and equity, but only if we begin by planning for the future, working closely with the rest of the community, and asking tough questions all the time.
Why should people vote for you?
I am asking for the votes of the people of our community for two reasons. First because of my specific plans to improve the school district, and second because of my experience helping to make improvements to public services as the chair of the Ferndale Library Board.
-Plans. In order to achieve the goals of excellence and equity, I think we need to do a few things right away:
o Retention: We need a concrete plan for retaining parents in the district, and I am proposing a specific plan for retention (The specifics are down below under the question on “parents leaving the district.”)
o Planning. We need a process of long-term planning. One of the first public actions of the organization CLEAR (http://makeitclearferndale.
o Cooperation. We need a plan for working with cities and other organization instead of holding other municipal bodies at a distance. I am proposing a specific plan to connect the school board with other boards through joint meetings and liaisons, and on election I will propose the creation of a joint committee of elected officials and executives in the district and its cities to develop plans for cooperation such as Safe Routes To School (http://saferoutesmichigan.
o Accountability. We need a plan to restore public confidence in the district by making contracts transparent and removing conflicts of interest. I am proposing that the school board act to obtain all necessary information about the district’s contracts and work to resolve any problems. If the problems cannot be resolved internally, I will recommend the use of outside procedures such as internal process audits and ombudsman services.
Experience: In addition to my experience as a father of two children in the district, and my professional experience studying public institutions and structures of accountability, I also bring directly relevant experience as a member and chair of a successful public board in our community. I served for 5 years on the Ferndale library board and participated in every aspect of board governance: finance, human resources, operations, facilities construction, evaluation and selection of administrators, bond issue campaigns and inter-governmental cooperation. During that period I worked closely with many other board members and citizens to transform the library from the city’s afterthought into the pride of the Ferndale community. I am extremely proud of the new library that we built, and I believe I can bring the same energy and expertise to Ferndale’s school board and, working closely with others, we can transform the school district as well.
Do you think parents sending their students out of district is an issue, and if so what would you do about it?
Parents make decisions about where to send their students to school for many different reasons and I will not second-guess those choices.. What I will do is to work actively, guided by research, data and broad public input, to make the Ferndale school district that nobody wants to leave.
– First, the question of retention must immediately become one of the primary criteria by which the board judges the performance of the superintendent. It is hard to get something you want if you do not ask for it explicitly. We must let the superintendent know that this is what we want.
-Second, many problems with retention can be addressed immediately through careful attention to detail: our the quality and extent of our marketing material, mailing lists and targeted outreach to parents with small children must be improved immediately
-Third, the front-line relationship between district employees and parents must improve. Parents and would-be parents must encounter a district that treats them with respect and actively cares about their concerns. The district must immediately improve its customer service and the board must immediately work to persuade citizens (parents and non-parents alike) that it will listen to and respond to their concerns.
-Finally, as Prof. David Arsen of Michigan State University has noted, the best form of public relations for a district is an “extensive, aggressive community efforts to get people together, to get them talking by providing information and trying to create a vision of a district that is committed to diversity and excellence”(2012). If we want to keep parents in the district, we must show them that the district knows where it is going and knows how to get there.
What do you think are the top responsibilities of the School Board?
The top responsibilities of the school district are to speak for the citizens of the district on two questions: what should be the overall direction of district policy? And how effective is the performance of the district’s chief executive? On the first question, the board waited far too long—ten years—to engage the citizens in a comprehensive planning process. On the second question, as I discuss below, the board has not demonstrated a sufficiently independent voice in raising questions about district initiatives related to contracts, land purchases, and curriculum choices, among others.
Are there any school board decisions or policies that you disagree with, and why?
My most important disagreement has been in areas that the board has not made any significant decisions:
– We need more attention by the board to making retention of families a major goal of the district.
– We need more attention by the board to emerging inequities between schools within the district or addressed the consequences of those inequities for education, budgeting and retention.
Beyond this list, there are quite a few decisions on which I have been quite public in my disagreement with board decisions:
– The decision of the school board members to extend their own terms to six years and create a gap of more than two years between school board elections, despite overwhelming opposition at public meetings.
– The decision to sign a purchase agreement for the research laboratories of Hayes-Lemmerz (formerly Ethyl Lead) for use as an alternative high school despite public records of significant contamination (until the results of an $80,000 study caused the district to abandon the agreement). The biggest problem with this purchase agreement is that the board accepted it without seeing (or even requesting) a business plan that would demonstrate the financial advantages of the purchase.
-The decision to pursue a bond issue election on the same day as the 2012 Republican Party presidential primary. On this, I admit that I was quite wrong, and I am full of thanks and praise to all those who worked so hard—including many board members against whom I may be campaigning—to achieve a resounding “yes” result.
What does Ferndale Schools do well as a district?
– Involvement. The Ferndale School District is strong in the same ways that the communities of Ferndale, Oak Park, Pleasant Ridge, and Royal Oak Township are strong: community engagement. The community involvement in our district is remarkable, extending from parents tutoring in classrooms to phenomenally successful PTSAs to community groups like the Fine Arts Boosters and the Ferndale Education Fundation.
– Enrichment. The amazing success of Ferndale’s band and music programs and the achievements of the CASA Advanced Placement Programs give an indication of what the district could work toward in every area of education if it had an adequate and inclusive process of long-term planning and if its board adopted a culture of inquiry.
At one time I might also have added “financial stability” to this list, but my experience with the district in the past several years has raised serious questions about whether this can still be considered an area of strength. It is true that the district has maintained a surplus, but we have also experienced an unexpected amount of financial risk-taking and we need to ask some tough questions:
We need to answer these and related question before we can make any claims about the quality if the district’s financial management.
What can be improved upon?
As I suggest above, Ferndale must become a first choice school district. As I’ve discussed here, there are specific steps we can take right away to make this happen. We must also focus on the conditions that support parents’ choices and that means an emphasis on excellence, equity and the processes of accountability that are necessary to sustain an excellent, equitable school district.
Anything else readers should know about you?
I am committed to this community and I will do whatever I can to help it thrive. As part of that commitment, I will do everything in my power to run a campaign that helps to preserve and build community bonds. I have substantive disagreements with current school board members about policy questions, but I promise to act with civility in this campaign and to treat my fellow candidates, and all of the other citizens of our district, with kindness and respect.
NOTE: Kevin Deegan-Krause is running on the “CLEAR” PAC slate for this election along with Raylon Leaks-May, Amy Butters and Jim O’Donnell. Read more about CLEAR at http://makeitclearferndale.org
While the four are campaigning together, voting is done on an individual basis. The election will be Nov. 6, 2012. More voting information can be found at https://oaklandcounty115.com/