In August, we recommended three-term incumbent Marge Whaley as the clear choice in the race for District 2 Pasco School Board seat. The ensuing two months have solidified our reasoning.
The school board is nonpartisan and candidates are elected countywide, but must reside in individual districts. District 2 covers central Pasco.
As noted previously, Whaley, 63, is innovative, yet pragmatic. When parents lamented the inability of their children to walk with their graduating classes because of FCAT failures, Whaley persuaded the administration, through a literacy grant, to establish learning specialists at each of the nine high schools. Sophomores who fail the FCAT are identified and given extra help from the specialists, who coordinate the remedial programs and work with parents and students.
It exemplifies her career. Whaley is a problem solver. As supervisor of health services and education for the Pasco school district in the mid 1970s, she began a new slate of health programs. She persuaded School Board members to approve the ideas, assembled a team of nurses, raised money from outside sources and enlisted the cooperation of teachers and administrators. It led to the Cyesis program aimed at keeping pregnant teens from dropping out, full-service schools offering basic services in isolated areas, and a widely respected human growth and development curriculum.
Whaley is a leader of the Pasco School Board and it is imperative she be retained as the district faces uncertain leadership. The retirement of superintendent John Long and School Board member Pam Coulter means new people will be guiding the district, Pasco's largest employer, charged with educating 57,000 children. Stability has been one of the leading characteristics of the highly regarded district, and Whaley would help provide continuity.
Her opponent is 23-year-old Ryan O'Reilly, a former substitute teacher, who remains largely uninformed on education issues. He views public schools as filled with undisciplined students wearing inappropriate clothing running amok in classrooms that fail to teach the basics or offer enough vocational opportunities. He doesn't believe in the purpose of alternative schools for troubled students, saying a child who brings a knife to school should be expelled for a year. He also doesn't think the district should be investing in prekindergarten classes, which prepare 4-year-olds to hit the ground running at the outset of their learning years.
O'Reilly, who works for his family's fledgling home-building business, has suggested the amount of the school impact fee should be flexible so it can be lowered during economic downturns. It's indefensible legally because the cost of educating kids doesn't decline as interest rates increase. It's also special interest driven. The building industry should be doing favors for the school board, not vice versa.
O'Reilly wants to warehouse kids in larger schools to save administrative and land-acquisition costs, while at the same time decentralizing vocational training to duplicate the Marchman Vocational Center offerings at each of the county's nine high schools. His only suggestion for paying for such an ambitious project is that the private sector will step forward to assist the district.
O'Reilly's wide-ranging criticisms fail to account for the efficiencies and strong student achievement at Pasco's public schools. The school district ranks 66th of Florida's 67 counties in administrative costs.
Since 1998, the district earned $10-million in state incentives for building new schools at costs below the Florida standard. In June, more than 80 percent of the schools received grades of A or B under the governor's ranking system tied to performance on standardized tests. The district has no school lower than a C for the current year and has never had an F school.
Whaley and the School Board began an International Baccalaureate program and plans to expand it to the west side of the county next year.
It is an impressive record of which Whaley rightfully can take ownership. The Times strongly recommends voters re-elect Marge Whaley to the District 2 school board seat.
