Snyder ISD board of trustees candidates address issues

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Lauren Collier, Jim Drake and Ron Hester are running for the two at-large seats on the Snyder ISD board of trustees.
Early voting will begin at 8 a.m. Monday at College on the Square.
The Snyder Daily News asked each candidate a series of questions:
Q. — What is the main reason you are seeking this position?
Collier — The main reason I have chosen to run for the SISD board is simple, the kids. My kids currently attend three of the five campuses. While I am a SHS graduate, a taxpayer, a local business owner and a school volunteer, I am above all else a mom. I want the absolute best for my kids and the other kids of this community. I think that my strong Christian values will serve me well in making decisions that benefit all students. I have a vested interest in SISD and a passion for seeing it back among the top schools in Texas.
Drake — In 2013 I ran for trustee because I wanted to serve SISD in any way I could. I have always considered this office a service position. That’s the way it should be. Leaders must be servants in order to lead the organization. I want to continue my service to the district through leadership, vision and creating an environment of excellence. We need sustained leadership in the coming years with leaders committed to see things through. I want to be part of the solution to the issues we’ve faced. I can help by using my strategic gifts and leadership skills.
Hester — My reason for running for school board is to make SISD the best district in Texas. Last year the voters of Snyder elected me to make some needed changes and to represent them from an educator’s perspective. I have tried to do just that and hope the trust that they have placed in me has been justified. I am now running again for the third year in a row and am asking for a full term to complete my promise to the community.
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Q. — What do you bring to the table for Snyder ISD that makes you the candidate the public should vote for?
Collier — I think that it is important to have a well-rounded group on the school board. I’m more than “just a mom,” my husband and I own a dairy farm outside of Snyder. Dairy farming deals with financial volatility continually. I feel like my experience in helping to run the day-to-day operations of our business will be valuable in making efficient decisions for the future of SISD in these tough economic times.
Drake — I bring to the district 25 years of leadership in non-profit organizations with seven years in the for-profit environment. I bring skills in personnel, finance and strategic planning. I know how to take us from ideation to implementation of goals and dreams. I come from a family of educators with over 135 years of experience. I bring to the district three years of experience in local and state educational training. It takes the first three years to learn and see all that makes up the educational process in Texas. I’ll continue to do the work for the district.
Hester — As I stated, I sought to bring my experience as a teacher in this district to the board to give needed insight from that perspective. After a year of learning how to be an effective board member, I now bring that wisdom of my role to the table. The learning curve has been short, but I have watched and listened as my colleagues communicated together. The current board had banded together and I want to continue to be a part of their decision-making to bring our district to prominence.
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Q. — The loss of Additional State Aid for Texas Reduction (ASATR) beginning with the 2017-18 school year will have a major impact on Snyder ISD’s finances. Are any programs off limits and what are three areas you think major expense savings could be realized? (Each candidate was allowed 100 words for each area).
Collier — I realize that there are lots of tough decisions to be made in the near future pertaining to the potential loss of ASATR. To be honest, because I have not seen the current or projected budget, I am not comfortable saying what I would or would not cut. However, I will make an effort to help find areas where cutting back would have the smallest possible impact on our success as a school while using the taxpayers’ money efficiently.
Drake — Operations: I believe that we must look at all operational costs and where we can, use the economies of scale and procurement to get the best value at the lowest price. Our operational costs can be measured for effectiveness and efficiency and give us the greatest benefit for our tax dollars. We must be willing to utilize resources available to us today that maybe weren’t available years ago. This may mean some organizational restructuring to use all available resources. When we redeploy our resources, we will find greater efficiencies for less cost.
Programs: In light of academics, we need to evaluate every program to see if it indeed adds to our pursuit of excellence. Every cause is worthy at its inception, but over time some have declining effectiveness. Perhaps by evaluating every program in light of our academic plan, we can add, subtract or rebuild programs that will help us achieve our goals. We make these decisions with great discernment and with a view to where we want to go. Personnel are the greatest resource we have. We’ll keep that as a top priority while realigning the district to the vision.
Extras: We all make decisions between wants and needs. We will need to become very discerning between a want or need. The need will always take precedence. We’ll need to delay purchases until absolutely necessary and become very resourceful, using our purchases to the very end of their shelf life. There are many things that we want in order to be contemporary, but in the end some things are really wants that can wait until another time. SISD knows what’s important for success and I’m convinced our SISD teams will know how to help us make it work.
Hester — Four day school week: Possibly moving our district to a four-day school week could be an option. Extending the hours of the school day to eliminate that fifth day should decrease the budget by somewhere between 10 and 20 percent. With no expense for buses, food, utilities or substitutes for that one day, we should see some return on our budget. This option is certainly preferable to cutting salaries and staff.
Extracurricular travel: Another option is cutting back on extracurricular travel. As a speech teacher, my kids attended 12 to 15 meets a year. We could easily have cut that travel to 8 to 11 meets without sacrificing results. Athletic and other activities could also trim some of these trips. Every program should have to cut some. I realize that football plays a limited schedule, but one scrimmage instead of two would help. Again, this option is better than eliminating jobs.
Incentives for students: The last option would be to find incentives to keep our students in school. Increasing our attendance just a few percentage points would bring in more state funds. We are also in improvement required status and when that happens, we should be able to retain and bring back some of our transfer students. I believe that each student brings in close to $8,000 to the district. I am sure we are working on this now, but we can probably do more.
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Q. — What are the traits that you will look for in our next superintendent?
Collier — I think our next superintendent needs to be personable and outgoing with good communication skills. I would like to see someone that is a motivator with good business sense and thinks outside the box when it comes to education, finances, employees and students. I am hoping that we can find someone that has had success in dealing with some of our current challenges.  I feel strongly that they need to move to Snyder, become part of our community and be invested long term. My hope is that we can find someone that the faculty, staff and students will all respect.
Drake — I’m looking for a calm, courageous, consistent and competent leader who can read our situation and formulate a plan to lead us. We have some great challenges and I know the next leader will need strategic skills in finance, academics and culture to make us excellent in all things. They will need to have community mindedness while being able to focus on the SISD mission simultaneously. I’ll be looking for someone who can lead not only the district, but work with the board to become the team of eight we need to be for the district.  We need a leader.
Hester — Our next superintendent needs to be a rock star. Not only should they be the loudest cheerleader of SISD, but they should also lead all of us by example. I don’t want a leader that sits in their office for eight hours a day. I think Snyder deserves a superintendent that visits the classes and hugs the kids and teachers. I believe this community deserves a person who will plant roots and commit to a career serving this community. Nothing else will suffice.
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Q. — Several candidates pointed to the need for better communication between the government entities and residents. The public doesn’t attend meetings and often reacts to your votes angrily rather than getting involved ahead of time. How can we improve public participation in the process?
Collier — I agree that better communication is vital to getting the community behind the school system. I think keeping things as transparent as possible is key. Most people, whether they like your decisions or not, respect honesty. As for better attendance, I don’t know if changing the night of the meetings to possibly Monday would be an option, but I do know that Thursdays are extremely busy for most. Obviously, any day would have its challenges.
Drake — I’m constantly inviting people to come and see the process of the board. I tell them this is their board. They need to hear the information firsthand. I believe we involve more people by sharing the correct information to limit confusion. We educate the public to the larger issues that we see and feel here locally. When the facts are known, people are engaged in the process. The board must take an active role to go and tell instead of depending on the stakeholders to read and understand alone. When we do this, we enlarge the tent of participation.
Hester — The key word is involvement. The seven of us on the board want the community to get on board this ship and help us steer it into the future. We want to be totally transparent to the community and have had several town hall meetings to tell our friends and neighbors what is happening in this district. I am in favor of more of these public meetings to get out the word to everyone. Some of the community have already stepped up and become involved in our kid’s future. We, as a district, need to recognize their contributions.
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Q. — The current board of trustees has had split votes on both major and minor decisions. Is that healthy disagreement or what could be damaging discord and how would you, as just one vote, try to bring a consensus?
Collier — Disagreements are to be expected when you get a group of people together that feel passionate, but those differences should not get so out of hand that they lead to disrespectful behavior. I think it is going to be crucial for the board to agree on the next superintendent. Until then, I think the key is to stay focused and communicate well regarding upcoming challenges.
Drake — There have been big changes in the board the last three years. Six of seven positions have changed. Fifteen people have been through the board. It’s easy to see how we’ve lost our collective vision for the district given these circumstances. We each bring a desire to see success, but sometimes those desires compete. When we have connecting values, we are in harmony and vice versa. Disagreement isn’t bad, but not having a collective vision is deadly.  I’ll work for a collective vision for the board so we’ll agree on why we do what we do. Unity is the goal.
Hester — I can only answer this question by what I have seen. There had obviously been discord in the past, but since I was not privy to it, I would say that is has affected some votes this year. With that said, I feel that the board has ironed out many of those feelings. The past, unfortunately, still rears its head every so often. I would certainly love for all of our votes to be unanimous, but if you can look in the mirror at night and believe you voted for the benefit of our kids, you did your job.