Kevin Patrick Gentry: Candidate Profile

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioKey IssuesQA Bio City: HuntleyWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Consolidated D158Age: 41Family: Married, one daughterOccupation: Finance, BankingEducation: BA Accounting, Michigan State UniversityMBA Finance, Western Michigan UniversityCivic involvement: Candidate did not respond.Elected offices held: Consolidated School District 158, Board Member 2007-PresentHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Continuing to keep the district on sound financial footing in these challenging economic times.Key Issue 2 Charting the course to maintain the positive trajectory of academic achievement and student success.Key Issue 3 Maintaining and nurturing public trust and understanding within the district and community.Questions Answers How satisfied are you that your district is preparing students for the next stage in their lives, whether it be from elementary into high school or high school into college or full-time employment? What changes, if any, do you think need to be made?Generally pleased with the level of academic achievement and how students are prepared for growing to the next level. A key ongoing area of opportunity is to continue the work and focus in the area of curriculum consistency between middle school and high school and elementary and middle school. As the High School continues to grow in size, we will need to ensure that the student experience remains personal enough to support the learning and social needs of our young adults. I am interested in the district exploring more ""school within a school"" concepts in order to accomplish this objective.What budget issues will the district have to confront? What measures do you support to address them? If cuts are needed, be specific about programs and expenses that should be reduced or eliminated. Do you support any tax increases for local schools?In the immediate term, the district will have to deal with the renewal of the teacher contract. As essentially every other employee group has sacrficed by accepting pay freezes, we will have to work diligently to ensure we also control costs on the renewal of our largest contract. In addition, we will continue to face the effects of the continued financial struggles of the state. The main effects of this will be the continued stagnation and declines in funding levels. As with past budget cycles, I would put the following priority on needed budget cuts 1) All non class room facing spending should be considered first, which typically includes capital projects, site maintenance and to some extent technology, 2) I would be willing to preserve core extracurricular activities (and non core curricular offerings) at the expense of some growth in class size (within eventual limits). 3) Maintain strong discipline on any administrative hires. 4) Ultimately, the vast majority of our costs as a district are people and as we continue to see pressure on our revenues headcount reductions in classroom teachers may be unavoidable.Regarding a tax increase, I would not be in favor of seeking additional revenues from the public at this time. Given the economic reality that our community is living in, adding additional financial burden is not the right thing to do.Is experience as a teacher or support from a union valuable because it suggests educational insights or detrimental because it creates pro-teacher bias? Please clarify whether you have such experience or would accept union support.I believe the Board will always benefit from varied backgrounds and having educator experience is indeed valuable for this purpose. As far as creating a pro teacher bias, I believe the ultimate onus is on the quality and integrity of the individuals elected to ensure that they remain fair and objective. Additional responsiblity is on the voting public who needs to be well informed and make good choices at the voting booth.I personally do not have teaching experience and believe I bring a valuable perspective to the table as well.As contract talks come up with various employee groups, what posture should the board take? Do you believe the district should ask for concessions, expect employee costs to stay about the same as they are now or provide increases in pay or benefits?This answer is going to vary. In our current environment, we should seek at least ""hard freezes"" maintaining costs where they are. As the financial position of our district may worsen in the future, additional concessions may be needed to preserve quality of education for our students. Ultimately, there will be an ongoing trade-off between salary levels and staffing levels that we will need the unions to partner with us to help truly optimize that balance.If your district had a superintendent or other administrator nearing retirement, would you support a substantial increase in his or her pay to help boost pension benefits? Why or why not?No. I believe this practice is an abuse of the system and ultimately signs the state up for a lifetime annuity of payments that should not exist, which further weakens the system as a whole.