As the Aug. 26 primary election draws closer, the Plant City Times & Observer will be publishing profiles and Q&As from each of the candidates who will represent Plant City and its constituents. In this edition, we introduce the candidates for Hillsborough County School Board District 4: Terry Kemple, Dee Prether and Melissa Snively.
TERRY KEMPLE
Age: 67
Family: Married; five daughters; 18 grandchildren
Hometown: Come from a military family. First place I lived more than a few years is Brandon
Education: Attended United States Naval Academy & Newark (New Jersey) College of Engineering
Experience: 18 years as an advocate for parents, children, and families with governmental bodies; executive director, Christian Coalition of Florida; executive director, Florida Right to Life; six years, U.S. Naval Reserve
Favorite author and book: The Bible: I read it every day. Author: God.
If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? Jesus Christ — in person
Website: Vote4TerryKemple.com
What’s the biggest challenge the School Board faces, and what are your solutions?
The biggest challenge is the high number of students who can’t read, write, and/or calculate at grade level.
Solutions:
Encourage more parents to be more involved in their children’s education. There needs to be an aggressive and consistent effort to find ways to attract more parents into the process.
It needs to be easier for parents to work their way through the bureaucratic maze so they can find out how to help their kids.
Focus on basics and eliminate failed programs like Springboard, Voyages Math and now Common Core (aka Florida Standards).
Regain, to the greatest extent possible, local decision-making and control.
Show teachers they are valued and eliminate morale killing experiments like Empowering Effective Teachers.
Are teachers paid adequately? Why or why not?
I don’t know every teacher’s abilities or achievements, but as a general answer, “No.”
The future of America is in our classrooms. Next to parents, teachers have one of the most awesome responsibilities there is. Every effort should be made to pay them as the professionals they are.
What is your position on Common Core and the new Florida Standards curriculum?
Common Core came with about 11,000 standards. The state Department of Education added/modified less than 100. I believe this was done to provide a rationale for changing the name and thereby, hopefully, blunt the growing wave of opposition to Common Core.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a total rewrite of our education methodology that was developed in Washington, D.C., and has never had a pilot program. That means we’re risking the education of a generation of students on an experiment that is being forced down onto the states by Washington.
CCS was snuck in under the radar by big government and big business, because there is a lot of power in controlling education and there’s a lot of money to be made in the process of implementing it.
Now that the people are getting educated about CCS, public opinion is shifting dramatically. Between November 2013 and June 2014, polling by the Rasmussen polling company on the question, “What do you think about the continued implementation of Common Core,” has gone from 52% for and 29 % against to 34% for and 47% against. That’s a 36% swing in eight months!
It should be obvious that I oppose CCS. It has been that way since the issue first came to my attention last year.
I think we should go back to the Sunshine State Standards. We should develop a new Florida test to evaluate Florida students. We should end high-stakes testing, because it reduces knowledge by forcing teachers and students to focus on the answers to the test. That greatly reduces the range of knowledge to which students are exposed in K through 12 classes.
What is your position on curriculum that has been aligned to the Common Core Standards? (What is being imposed on us are standards. An evaluative test is being developed to assess how well students have been able to master the standards. Some curriculum has been developed, but the purpose of the curriculum is to bridge the gap between the standards and the test. Since the test hasn’t been developed yet, there is no way to measure how well the curriculum works.)
Those teachers with whom I’ve spoken, who have had an opportunity to work with the curriculum that has been in use, have found some of it to be problematic. Things like asking kindergarden and second-grade students to engage in “critical thinking” before they have the fundamental skills necessary for it and some of the convoluted methods for solving math problems are a cause for serious concern.
I’ve also been told by teachers that many of the examples within the curriculum promote an anti-free trade or pro-socialist perspective.
What skills and experiences make you the best candidate for School Board?
My 18 years of experience as a conservative Christian advocate dealing with policy at the governmental level has taught me how the process works and how to work within the system to build consensus and see initiatives get passed. I have extensive experience in business, management, process analysis and technology. Having children and grandchildren graduate from public schools has provided hands-on experience with teachers and with what goes on in the classroom.
While it’s not the job of School Board members to actually delve into district operations, my broad range of experience will be invaluable as a school board member when it comes time to evaluate budgets and both initiate and analyze policy recommendations.
What are some of the issues facing schools in Plant City, and what are your proposed solutions?
Some of the problems I’ve heard about in Plant City are probably the same in other parts of the county.
High turnover of experienced teachers because they don’t want to be intimidated under the “peer review” portion of the Empowering Effective Teachers Initiative and because their hands are being tied by fads like Common Core.
High turnover of new teachers because the new restrictive methodology they’re forced to use because of Common Core isn’t what they signed on for so they’re leaving (some to be retrained) for other jobs.
Students considering calling in bomb threats to be pranks.
Rats.
The solutions to these problems are the same as mentioned above except that there should be immediate, meaningful discipline for anyone who calls in a false alarm and a good exterminator needs to be called for the rats.
Any other thoughts/comments?
One of the things I feel is most important in reclaiming excellence in education in America is a return to local decision-making and local control. The Florida Legislature passed a law that gives each district the right to establish a curriculum selection committee that picks all the materials for the district. That isn’t the way it has been, with the district having to take at least 50% of its books from a list of those approved by the state.
We should take advantage of this opportunity and create our own curriculum committee, a majority of which is made up of parents and other community volunteers who aren’t employees of the district.
I believe America grew to be the intellectual, economic and spiritual leader of the world, because of our Founders’ belief in personal responsibility, free enterprise that encouraged competition, and unalienable rights that come from our Creator.
If elected to Hillsborough County School Board District 4, I’ll work hard to ensure that our school system provides for and supports each parent’s right to choose the best educational environment for their children. I’ll also work to see that all public schools: traditional, charter, magnet and virtual, and all of our children are treated equally and fairly.