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More things candidates say while running for Hillsborough County School Board.

 
Published July 18, 2018|Updated July 18, 2018

On Tuesday, we met two of the three candidates in District 1 for the Hillsborough County School Board. Today we present all three candidates for District 2, which covers South Tampa and the more rural communities of Southeast Hillsborough.

Stacy Hahn, education professor-turned-university administrator

Hillsborough County School Board candidate Stacy Hahn [campaign]
Hillsborough County School Board candidate Stacy Hahn [campaign]

"I was not happy with the board member representing my district."

"I'm very concerned about the state of our district and I guess I'm just not the type of person who can sit by the sidelines and wait for someone to fix it."

Specifically, what is wrong with Sally Harris?

"One, I think ethically I have concerns. From what I've witnessed, I don't feel that she respects the ethics of the office she holds. She publicly – and it's on video – revealed that she has conversations with Cindy Stuart in the morning and the evenings. She violated sunshine law. She openly didn't even realize, I don't think, that was a violation."

Hahn also noted Harris's use of a School Board email address on her campaign documents.

Beyond the ethical issues, "some of the voting decisions she made, I believe impacts negatively student achievement as well as the safety of our students."

For example:

"She voted to eliminate courtesy busing" without asking enough questions about the impact.

"I'll say this for the record, but she historically votes with three other board members in a way that is obstructive to the hard work that needs to be done. More so than what's in the best interest, I believe, of our students and schools and teachers."

"She needs to make informed decisions. You need people on that board who can think for themselves, who can ask important questions, know where to look for the information."

"I'm a researcher. I'm a data person. I want to look at the data that supports decisions. That's how my mind operates. It's not what I think and feel."

On the knock against Hahn, that she sends her children to Catholic school:

"That decision was made long before I even ever thought about running for office. It was also not made because I was displeased with public education. We wanted our children to learn within the context of our faith. That was important to us, it was very important to my husband. We have excellent public schools where I live. I was a teacher at Mitchell [Elementary]… But it was important to my family, we made that decision.  I don't regret it. It has nothing to do with my displeasure or lack of trust in public education."

Hahn said she spent some, but not all of her own childhood years in private school.

"I'm a public educator and I believe in public education. If I did not believe in public education, I'd be working for a foundation or in the private sector. I'd be making more money doing that as well. I've dedicated my career to improving public education and my pathway to do that has been obviously training future teachers."

On her ability, as a professional and academic, to advocate on the county, state and national level:

"These are all things that are important that aren't being done by our board, specifically by Sally. Sally goes and visits every school and takes a sweet picture and shows her PowerPoint. Everybody takes out their popcorn. But you can visit all the schools you want. If you don't know what to look for and have conversations, really meaningful conversations about problem solving for the schools, then it's a photo op. Let's call it what it is."

On the low reading levels in the Hillsborough schools:

"It goes back to teacher workforce. It goes back to the deprofessionalization of teachers."

"We have deprofessionalized the teaching profession. We have got teachers who can be trained in a multitude of ways now with absolutely no oversight on quality and standards of how they're being trained. So when you say, we are we having plummeting  reading scores? I think it goes back to how are we training teachers to deal with the diversity of learning needs, styles, the diversity of our population which has changed a great deal over the last decade. And instead of working toward lifting up the teaching profession, paying them more, paying them what you promised them, providing the continuous professional development and planning strategically for that … no longer do you have to have a degree in teaching."

"We just escaped the Gates grant, which killed the morale of teachers across this district… We're just starting to exhale from that and now we've got this teacher pay issue that we've gone through this year, which has demoralized our teachers, caused teachers to flee the district, makes it very difficult to recruit teachers from outside or even grow your own."

On the use of long-term substitute teachers, who often wind up teaching special-needs students.

"When you're putting a long-term sub who has zero experience around pedagogy and you're sticking them in front of the most vulnerable students in our district, you have a problem."

"We are not preparing teachers to work in urban schools. We're not. And we're not preparing teachers to even go out into our rural schools… When the majority of our teachers look like white middle class women, we have a lot of work to do to make sure that it's equitable, not just in the number of computers that are in a school, but how you assign homework. Your expectations for family engagement."

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Sally Harris, preschool owner, School Board chairwoman

Hillsborough County School Board Chairwoman Sally Harris [campaign]

Describing her first term on the board:

"It has been a roller coaster."

"It has been a challenge with the personality differences with the board [members] themselves, and then with the necessary cuts, the financial shortfall, the turmoil and the sadness of the F schools. I mean, it's really been a full challenge. Hurricanes, a school burning. If anybody had to have stress and negative surroundings, I think we've had it in my four year term. Everything from a superintendent change to all of that."

On her swing votes in 2015 to fire MaryEllen Elia as superintendent and hire Jeff Eakins:

"People come into your life in seasons. I think that the superintendent that we had had a great season and was very successful in her season, but I think her season ended… I think the right person to help us get through the financial [situation] was put in place. However, that same personality is starting to show weakness in being able to move us to the next level. Where we go from here, I'm not sure."

On the assertion that Harris and the others are slow to criticize Eakins publicly.

"I think one on one, we're very strong. I mean, I know that I am. I don't publicly put my dirty laundry out. I'm very cautious about what I say."

On the public's lack of confidence in the district's financial management:

"There's a trust issue. Even though we are constantly trying to give the public what they want and show that. We have been as transparent and open and very receptive to people's ideas. We've tried to build that trust. And hopefully, we've built the trust."

Harris says the district has made dramatic spending cuts over the last three years and, when asked, makes all records of those actions available.

"Now we're living within in our means. But we're stuck needing schools, needing air conditioning. So do we have to live even further under our means? At what point do we say now, enough is enough, that we can't cut anything else? The next thing to go would be sports? Arts? There's nothing else to cut."

On the need for a tax referendum:

"I love this community. I really believe this community could support a referendum or a tax today. I think they would. We have done what they asked. We have cut. We have shown them what we've cut. We have done everything that was put out in front of us to do. The only thing left to cut is sports. The only thing left to cut is our arts. We're getting beat up about the unfunded busing. We're getting beat up about the aides. Everything we cut, that we had to cut, we're getting beat up about on a regular basis. At every board meeting, somebody has something to say about it. But there's nothing else left. So do you want us to go to double sessions? And no sports? And no arts? If so, if that's what it takes to educate the children, then that's what we will have to do and we will, if we don't get community support."

"It's not necessarily that we're ready. It's the fact that we are desperate.  Aug. 10 you're going to have hundreds of air conditioners break and we have no ability to finance them and fix them. … We're at a financial crisis."

We pointed out that district leaders waited so long to pursue a referendum, the process is now held up by a new law requiring a state audit.

"Why did they drag their feet? Because they felt like they had to get their house in order first. I understand the dynamics. Do we have a government office that maybe needs to change? Yes. One hundred percent, that office needs to change. And I'll be the first one to say it and I've said it several times to Jeff."

On the board's public hearings on the $3 billion budget, which invariably proceed with little to no discussion.

"We have about three workshops before, and each one of those workshops is three hours long or two hours long. On each section of the budget we have one-on-one's with Gretchen [Saunders] and whoever that section of that budget is involving. If it's involving transportation, it's Mr. [Jim] Beekman. If it's operations, Chris Farkas. We have so many of those meetings that by the time we get to the dais, all of that conversation [has already happened]."

In discussing the Achievement Schools, Harris said she is deep "in the weeds." Between the 35 children she has fostered herself and the time she has spent running a pre-school, she is a big believer in hands-on learning.

"There are ways that we can teach these kids if we can just think outside the box. It's not going to work if they don't think outside the box."

"The kids they're trying to move won't move through reading a book. They're not going to move sitting at computer. You've got to let them touch it and feel it… If you let them have hands on, they can sit down and take the test. Because the reasoning on the test doesn't bother them any more."

On her opponent, Stacy Hahn:

"Stacy comes from an educational background. But I think that what separates us is my life experience for one … She went to private school, her kids are in private school. How can you go to private school and try to tell the district how to do anything? "

"She's good at what she does, but she has no idea about the struggling child, the child without parents. She has no idea, the kids that we're dealing with at the F schools, the homeless. She's never had to live that way and so she doesn't understand that level. I've been with the kids that struggle. I've held their hands."

On the leak of board members' Facebook messages to La Gaceta:

"You need people to expose people… How can you not say that that's not positive? I think that anything that comes out where things are going on, that's healthy because that's how you heal and you build in a relationship, period."

Why is there so much infighting on the board?

"The thing that I have the hardest time with, and it's maybe a prejudiced statement, but it's a female issue, that sometimes people aren't as forgiving. And if it was two guys having the same fight, you would have them fight and go out and have a beer together."

"Women are vindictive. And women, they struggle, you know? They struggle with forgiveness."

Are you sure you want to blame their gender?

"In my life experiences, I would say that it sometimes is the gender thing. Because I think men have a tendency to be more forgiving immediately to each other. They do. It's just a way of life."

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Rod Mayhew, Real estate professional

Hillsborough County School Board candidate Rod Mayhew [campaign]
Hillsborough County School Board candidate Rod Mayhew [campaign]

"I saw the two candidates that were out there and they're not helping the SouthShore area, they're not helping some of these other areas. With my experience, I said, I've got to step up and do this.  It doesn't pay crap as far as a job, but it's just something that I had to do for the community because the communities are suffering right now."

How does he assess his competition?

"Sally Harris, they don't like her very much [in South Hillsborough], she's been out there for photo ops and they never see her again."

"I saw Sally Harris is running for re-election, to me she's a failing incumbent. I saw Stacy [Hahn] step up. She's more or less an ivory tower academic, but no practical business experience. And I think nothing's going to change with these two there."

Mayhew says his business experience, which also includes a community college and a chamber of commerce, makes him the best candidate.

"This is not a teacher position, this is a manager position."

"Three billion dollar budget. If you look at the state of Delaware, the entire state is $4 billion. For the entire state. So think about that."

On the low grades at SouthShore schools, and why grades matter:

"I see no reason why all these schools can't be A schools."

"Would you put your business out in a school area that had a D rated school? Of course not."

"I'll give you another example as a Realtor. I did some homes for KB homes, I sold some homes for them up in Medford Lakes off of [Highway] 301. A lady came in. I was going to sell her a 2,000 square foot home, a single story home, beautiful home. And she said, 'what's the schools?' So I told her, 'up through 12th grade it's Spoto, you might have a chance to get into Riverview.' 'Are they A rated?' 'No.' She went to Wesley Chapel, paid $100,000 more for the exact same house. The exact same house, no different, because A rated schools. I see that happen more and more and more. So it makes a difference."

"I don't know if it's a lack of urgency or just a lack of competence. It might be a combination. I think there's some personal agendas there. I don't know. But there's something that they're not telling people. I just have a hard time thinking they're not making schools better than they are."

On charter schools:

"There's a role for charter schools when you have special needs students or handicapped students, things like that. I think there's a need for those types of charter schools because they take away from the general education of the other students that are in the classroom. So there is a need for that. But to have charter schools as general education, no. any time you take money from the public sector and put it toward private business, the public sector gets put on the back burner a little bit."

On partisan politics (the school board position is nonpartisan):

"I'm Republican, but I go both ways. I don't go straight down Republican line or straight down Democratic line. I'll be honest with you. The first year Obama ran, I voted for him. The second year I didn't, but I like to give people a chance. And if I think someone can do a good job, I will vote for that person regardless of what political party they are. It doesn't matter to me and it shouldn't matter to people as well, but sometimes you get these political parties and they've got their chosen ones already picked out and they push that chosen one."

"It means nothing to me. Seriously it doesn't. I'm not a puppet."