Today, all five candidates seeking election to the Kettering Board of Education will meet at the offices of the Dayton Daily News for a group interview. The interview will be at 2:00 PM. Each candidate is suppose to bring to the interview a color photograph, a resume, and copies of campaign literature.

The Kettering board has five members and each member serves a four year term. Board elections are held every other November election. There are three Kettering board positions in contention this election and five candidates names will be on the November ballot for these three positions. All three incumbents of those positions are seeking reelection. The incumbents are George H. Bayless, Julie Ann Gilmore, and Frank C. Maus. The two challengers are myself, and James A. Brown.

I’m wondering what questions the DDN editors will ask.

• The Kettering financial situation, I’m sure, will be discussed. Kettering voters will need to deal with yet a new school operating levy next May.
• Kettering’s recent low grade in the state evaluation system, I’m sure, will be discussed.
• Kettering’s decision to not air President Obama’s address to school children, I expect, will also get some discussion.

I wonder if the most recent policy difference among the three incumbents will be explored. Two of the incumbents voted for the recent increase in teachers’ pay and one voted against the increase.  On May 5, the Kettering community approved the renewal of a 6.9 mill operating levy, and shortly after that approval, the Kettering Board approved, by a vote of 3-2, a new two year contract with teachers that had a 1.5% increase in salary each year of the two year contract. Bayless and Gilmore voted in favor of the teachers’ pay increase and Maus voted against the increase.

This should be interesting.  I’ll give a full report by tomorrow.

According to Kettering school officials, the Kettering School system, will need to put a new operating levy on the ballot next May. It looks like the amount of the levy will need to be 7 mills.

Yikes. The last new money was approved in November 2007, a five year 4.9 mill levy, and, at that time, the community was promised that, if the 4.9 mill levy was approved, no new money would be requested for another four years.

The district is going into the red sooner than expected and it looks like the district will need to break its promise of waiting four years to ask for new money. If the levy goes to the voters next May, as school officials recommend, then, this will be 18 months earlier than promised.

The district just this last May (2009) approved a renewal levy of a 6.9 mills. To return next May (2010) and ask for 7 mills of new money, will be a tough sell.

I want to comment about some of the ideas in this speech in a future post. Mike May in this video explains that he taught for 33 years. He is the ranking member of the education committee in Iowa’s House of Representatives