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From backgrounds to issues, they differ

Drug testing. State funding. Whatever the issue. You name it . These two disagree on it.

By TOM MARSHALL
Published November 1, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - It could go down to the wire in District 3: a classic battle between new blood and experience, a longtime teacher's view vs. that of a three-term Hernando County School Board incumbent.

And while Dianne Bonfield and John Druzbick have managed to keep things civil, they've long since abandoned thoughts of taking it easy on each other's positions.

On issue after issue - state funding, school overcrowding, random drug testing and even the question of who's paying closer attention to the issues - this race has become a fight.

Bonfield, who retired last month after 26 years teaching in county schools, has called it "unconscionable" that the School Board has spent recent construction dollars to build magnet schools that she says have drawn most of their students from less crowded schools.

"Consequently, those crowded schools get more and more portable" classrooms, Bonfield said, describing a "sea of portables" at Spring Hill and J.D. Floyd elementary schools.

But Druzbick said the criticism is neither accurate nor fair, since the lottery and portfolio system gives a preference to students from crowded schools. He said the School Board has moved aggressively to address overcrowding, adding or planning for 11,000 new student stations since he joined the board.

What caught the board by surprise, he said, was the 2002 passage of a state constitutional amendment to reduce class sizes.

That mandate - which came while new magnet schools were already being planned or built, and the district's population was skyrocketing - posed a challenge.

But "I think we're catching up," Druzbick said.

State funding

Early in the campaign, Druzbick said he was working with the Hernando Classroom Teachers Association, a union, to mount a grass roots lobbying effort to press the state Legislature for more funding.

He still believes the county's per-student funding level, ranked 66 out of Florida's 67 counties, is unfair. But he now says the proper emphasis should be put on adjusting components within the funding formula -transportation aid or the sparsity allowance, for example - rather than trying to outlobby South Florida for a larger share of the funding pie, which he termed "near impossible."

Bonfield, on the other hand, has continued to speak for people power.

"When we go to lobby in Tallahassee, we'll bring you with us," she said at a recent candidates forum. "We can bring 50,000 of you."

Bonfield has called for adding some zoned neighborhood enrollment at magnet schools, as well as a building plan that focuses on reducing overcrowding. She would institute a mentoring program targeting at-risk students to help reduce the dropout rate, and thinks districtwide "town meetings" might help reduce communication problems.

But Druzbick said she has provided no specifics on her building plans. And the mentoring plan relies on unspecified grant money and yet-to-be-negotiated help from unionized teachers, he said.

"Are you going to mandate that every teacher mentors a student?" Druzbick said. "I just don't think it's really been thought through. I think it's a good campaign platform but there are just too many loose ends."

Drug testing

The candidates diverge sharply on the question of drug testing. Bonfield says she supports a district effort to use federal funds to randomly test the urine of student athletes for the presence of drugs.

"What I'm most concerned about is that it's not punitive, it's positive," Bonfield said. "That's where my targeted mentoring program comes in. I think we can turn it into a positive rather than a negative."

But Druzbick remains strongly opposed to the initiative on student-privacy grounds, and favors drug education programs.

"Grant money or not, I would still not approve a testing program like that," he said, referring to the random testing proposal.

Lately, Druzbick has criticized what he views as Bonfield's lack of enthusiasm for attending board meetings and workshops in person.

"I go to every one," Bonfield retorts. "I watch them on television."

If that's the case, Druzbick says, she shouldn't continue to raise the issue of low public attendance at such meetings "because they're probably home watching it on TV." Monitoring events via remote control is a far cry from actively participating at meetings, he adds.

But Bonfield said she's ready to devote herself completely to School Board responsibilities, visiting schools and doing the research to make hard decisions.

"My opponent has a job commitment, a very serious job commitment," Bonfield said. "I will be a full-time School Board member; I will not have any other job responsibilities."

As of Oct. 13, she had raised $5,260 in donations toward her campaign. Druzbick pulled in $16,142.53 during the same period and won an endorsement from the Hernando Builders Association.

Tom Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sptimes.com or 352 848-1431.

John Druzbick

Druzbick, 55, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised on Long Island, where he graduated from Harborfield High School and attended Suffolk Community College. He has served 12 years on the Hernando County School Board, including four as chairman. He is married with two stepdaughters. He owns Custom Discount Blinds. He serves on the boards of the Early Learning Coalition of Pasco and Hernando Counties, and belongs to the Brooksville Elks, Oak Hill Community Board and RSVP. He is a former chairman of Relay for Life.

Dianne Bonfield

Bonfield, 57, has served more than 25 years in the county's schools. Her husband, Ken, was the first principal at Powell Middle School. She began teaching in 1969 in Ohio. Beginning in 1973, she taught special education in Hernando County schools before becoming a first-grade teacher at Westside Elementary in 1983 and moving to Pine Grove in 1988. She retired last month. She has two daughters and two grandchildren. She graduated from Bedford High School in Ohio and earned a bachelor's degree in education from Kent State University and a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from National-Louis University. She is a member of the Hernando Classroom Teachers Association.

[Last modified October 31, 2006, 22:13:37]