On April 7, at 6 a.m., polls opened, and tensions were high. They would close at 7 p.m. and St. Charles residents would learn that Jason Adams, Sara Dillard and Kevin McGuire were the newly elected individuals who would serve as directors on the Board of Education later that night. A total of six candidates ran for three open spots, given that the terms of board directors Ron Harmon, Mark Ponder, and Jane Puszkar would expire once the new members were sworn in. David Jaworski, Lauren Greenwood, and Puszkar (an incumbent candidate) ran together, as did Adams, Dillard, and McGuire.
“I’ve always felt a need to serve my community,” McGuire said. “I found different ways through the years to do that. I’ve considered running for the board before, but I never thought I had the time available to focus on what it actually takes to be a good board member in my mind… but good things don’t happen just because you want them to– you have to put in the work.”
Throughout their campaign, the candidates invested considerable effort in advertising their interests for the community and the BOE. However, one idea in particular was very valuable to them, and that was to keep the campaigns tame. This meant attempting to reduce partisan politics, drama, and hate surrounding not only the six candidates but also the BOE.
“I have friends that are on both ends of the political spectrum,” Dillard said. “And while we can engage in some heavy discussions, at the end of the day we still know that we’re friends. That is the expectation that I will hold myself to with my fellow board members, with parents, with district constituents, and with students. I think a good board member makes themselves available to listen.”
All three of the newly elected BOE directors say that they wish to make their community better in some way, and they have specific long term goals that they wish to work towards to achieve that. A couple of specific items that the three plan to focus on are staff retention, overall stability and keeping partisan politics away from the BOE.
“What I would like to concentrate on is reducing staff turnover and trying to, once again, make our district a district of choice…” Adams said. “And that’s going to take a lot of hard work, because without increasing revenue from somewhere, the only thing you can do is cut… so seeing what opportunities are out there to give our staff a reason to stay and for new teachers a reason to come would be a big focus of mine.”
The three have also expressed a shared desire of connecting and interacting with their community on top of their new responsibilities and goals. They have discussed planning events where members of the community can speak with them personally about issues they are concerned with.
“It’s great that you may want to make a change, but the very first thing that you need to do is listen, learn, and reflect,” Adams said. “Understand what your position is before you start coming up with those ideas. You want to know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s also important to run a campaign that, win or lose, you can go to bed at night after the results are in and know that you ran an ethical campaign, you didn’t take the low road, and that you treated people with respect.”
