On candidates for the board

Voters in this year’s Delaware Valley school board election will be entrusting candidates to negotiate new contracts with the teachers and support staff unions, deciding whether and where to build a new DV elementary school or undertake a costly renovation of the current school, steering the school district through a dangerous period of increasing expenses and potentially declining revenues and negotiating a new long term bus transportation contract. And then there’s the matter of providing a high quality education to our nearly six thousand students. We need to focus more on hiring, training and mentoring outstanding teachers, strengthening the curriculum, improving SAT scores and our students’ acceptance rates from good colleges, universities and vocational employers. We need to prepare our children to thrive in a fast changing and increasingly complex economy while minimizing the tax increases to pay for it. When I joined the school board in 2006, a long time board member announced that taxpayers were facing five to seven percent tax increases every year “as far as the eye can see.” Despite my strenuous objection and those of fellow new board members Deb Ducharme and Bob Goldsack, that’s what happened again in 2006. But so far, it hasn’t happened since. Given the school board’s challenging agenda, voters should look for candidates who have relevant experience, are independent minded, fiscally conservative and committed to helping our dedicated staff prepare our students to lead us to a bright future. Ed Silverstone, Delaware Valley School Director, Chairman, Finance, Budget and Audit Committee