Place 6
Francis Jackson
Q. What made you decide to run for board of trustees?
A. I said to myself years ago, whenever I retired, I wanted to be on the school board. I couldn't think of a better time to do it than now. I want to continue to serve, and I want to continue to be involved. I'm opposed to the cuts of all these teachers that they are making. I think that teachers and aides are the heart and soul of the district. They are the future-builders, and when you cut teachers, you degrade the quality of education. I don't care what anybody says. I've read it in the newspaper. You don't cut 60 or 80 [teachers] and not have a problem. The teachers are stretched. These people work hard. All my kids went through the school system here, and we came down here because of the schools.
Q. What in your background makes you a strong candidate for school board?
A. I taught for 17 years. I recently retired, so I know exactly what's going on. I have a feel for the teachers and the aides and what's going on in the district. This is a second career for me. I was in the military and retired from that. The military had a Troops to Teachers [program]. I've been involved in budgeting while in the military. I saw drastic cuts to the budget in the military that we had to go through and do big reductions. Everybody else is talking about the big picture, but to me, I'm thinking about people that it affects. When we are looking at the big picture, everything else gets kind of mired in that fog of battle. I'm not losing my focus of being opposed to the cuts of teachers.
Q. What are the top issues in the school district?
A. I'm opposed to cutting the teachers. There are a lot of positions—senior-level positions—that we need to take a hard look at and ask, 'Do we really need these positions?' They're real nice to have when everything is going along well and there is plenty of money, but now that we are in an austere budget, I say we cut those positions that do not impact education. I'm not saying the other positions are not important, but teachers and aides are the top priority. I was looking, and there have been two people in the Place 7 position in 18 years; that's too long. We need to get more people involved in the process. I think we need to have term limits. I also believe that the at-large positions in Georgetown need to be [single-member districts, so] if you represent Place 6 or 7 it is an actual area that you are required to live in and the people there vote for you.
Greg Eady
Q. What made you decide to run for board of trustees?
A. A lot of unfinished business that requires a strong financial background is left to do with the district. Where I come in with my financial background has helped us with our budget issues, our audit issues and our challenges we've had with our CFO. We still have an interim CFO, and we will need to go out and look for a qualified CFO. It's a very critical part of the school district having that key person to know the accounting side. We still have the rest of the bond to implement. We still have a lot of construction and development under way. It's my opinion that my individual talents are a good addition to help us have a diversified board. We have a board that communicates well together.
Q. What in your background makes you a strong candidate for school board?
A. I have 25 years in banking. That background fits that niche if you look at the whole pie of running the school district. We go ask the taxpayers for money through a bond, and then you get a bond. Well, then you have to find the best way to implement that so you get a [qualified] firm, but you have to know if they are telling you the right thing. Just because they say something doesn't mean it's right. We saw that with our audit firm, which we are no longer using. Just knowing the right things to ask and requiring them to do the right things and the audit is a unique document. It's very critical. It helps with bond rating and how our accounting is set up.
Q. What are the top issues in the school district?
A. The state wants us to be efficient. Well, how do we do all that and looking at everything possible without having to go back to the taxpayers and ask for more money? We are doing more with a lot less. We need to have an investment policy in place to have better policies and procedures of how we manage those bonds and how we pay down debt when we have the ability to pay down the debts. We do want to methodically build back the reserves. We've been reactive, and we want to be strategic and proactive going forward. It's one of the toughest things that a lot of taxpayers don't realize is that it's an $80 million company with employees, and your revenue stream is dictated by somebody you can't control, and the most critical thing that you produce is a child's education. Trying to get all that working together is a tough thing to do.
Place 7
Paul Newton
Q. What made you decide to run for board of trustees?
A. I've been interested in it for many years. I traveled for many years, and that sort of prevented me from being able to do it where we lived previously. I had an opportunity to hear a talk by the Toronto school district superintendent. One of the things this guy got across to me was the significance of leadership in any organization. I spent 10 years working as a consultant for small- and medium-sized companies and nonprofits, and part of what that was all about was helping them improve their organizational performance. I think education is a vital piece of the future of the country, and I've got a skill set at working with organizations and people figuring out ways to do things more effectively.
Q. What in your background makes you a strong candidate for school board?
A. I taught algebra in high school for a short time after I got out of college. Then I was responsible for managing all weapons training for the advanced infantry training brigade during Vietnam. I got meaningful background in managing the education process in a vital area at an early age. When I worked for the printing company, I was responsible for organizing and implementing a total quality program. The work I've done for the last 18 years, working with companies to make them better—is all about what is important, what are our problems and issues, what can we do about it, and how do we go about doing it. I think I've got extraordinarily good people skills in terms of working with people to get things done.
Q. What are the top issues in the school district?
A. You can't ignore the dollars and cents issues. We've got revenue issues, we've got cost issues, we've got cash flow issues. Recognizing that school districts are pretty limited in their ability to raise revenue and figuring out organizational issues to maximize money is, today, a huge issue. I think right in line with dollars and cents subjects, school districts period have to figure out more and better ways to use technology to enhance the ability to perform effectively with the same or less dollars. I look at subjects like the one I taught, algebra, math and science as very amenable these days to the use of technology to have the best teachers teaching all students in that subject area. One of the things to me that we need to do is educate teachers on [how to teach] as opposed to [just learning a] subject.
Ronna Johnson
Q. What made you decide to run for board of trustees?
A. I've been involved for 10 years, and I felt like we have a great board of seven. Brad Smith was coming off, and we have one trustee who is a woman, so I thought that perspective would be valuable especially because I have kids in all the three levels. I'm certainly very familiar with the operations of the district from working in the schools for this long. I have relationships in the district with mostly all the principals and a lot of the teachers from being on the PTA Council and Georgetown Partners in Education board. It just seemed like this was a good time for maybe my perspective to join the conversation in the boardroom.
Q. What in your background makes you a strong candidate for school board?
A. I have a business degree from Texas A&M University, so I have a strong business background. I also have a technology and business development background. I have finance and marketing experience, and those things are all needed. I think the most important thing in my background is 10 years of experience with GISD. People know that I don't do this for any other reason than to do what's best for the schools. Because when a community has good schools, it is a community of excellence. Our schools reflect that, and people want to move to communities with strong schools, and Georgetown has always had that.
Q. What are the top issues in the school district?
A. First of all, school finance is such a big issue for the district, and certainly they've gone through a massive process of identifying where best to put their resources. Right now, certainly an issue would be to maximize every resource the school district has, whether it is a dollar resource, a human resource or facility resource to make sure they get the best value from those because resources are very tight. I think another passion for me is strategic planning because as resources tighten, there is a need to have a strong sense of direction of where the district is going. Certainly we need to be preparing our students for that global workplace and making sure they have cutting-edge curriculum and technology integrated into the curriculum.
May 12 polling locations
- Pct. 305/392/395: Ford Elementary School, 210 Woodlake Drive
- Pct. 314: Georgetown High School, 2211 N. Austin Ave.
- Pct. 343/344: First Baptist Church, 1334 W. University Ave.
- Pct. 342/368: Gabriel Oaks Church of Christ, 1904 S. Austin Ave.
- Pct. 311/337/369/370: Williamson County Central Maintenance Facility, 3151 S.E. Inner Loop Drive
- Pct. 341/371/379: Georgetown ISD Administration Building, 603 Lakeway Drive
- Pct. 381/394: Cowan Creek Amenity Center, 1433 Cool Springs Way
