Kris Rayman: 2023 candidate for Batavia Unit District 101 school board

Bio

Town: Geneva

Age on Election Day: 49

Occupation: Sales

Employer: Oracle

Previous offices held: None

Q&A

Q: Why are you running for this office, whether for reelection or election the first time? Is there a particular issue that motivates you?

A: There are various reasons, but the primary one is the fact that we, as a community, are failing our students academically. This community should not be ok with the fact that nearly 6 out 10 of our students are judged to be not proficient in ELA (English Language Arts) or Mathematics.

Based on the focus of the district, the urgency to fix this is not paramount. Nothing else should take precedence over the educational fundamentals that are necessary for our children to succeed.

Q: What is the role of the school board in setting and monitoring curriculum?

A: First, the school board must acknowledge when results are unacceptable. Every question, especially with regards to curriculum, should be "How can we improve our students' education?" Everything else is secondary.

The school board is responsible for creating the vision for the district. We must ensure that district and school leadership understand that academic excellence is an expectation. We are not victims of whatever situations exist - there will always be challenging situations. Our children, however, are the victims when we fail to lead on this.

Q: Are there curriculum issues within the district that you feel need particular attention from the board?

A: Absolutely. Students' education has obviously suffered because of COVID. Some of this was inevitable. Much of it, however, was avoidable. Regardless of how we got here, every minute we spend not focusing on the critical core subjects is a minute lost that our kids need to catch up. We do not have the luxury of the increased focus on issues that do not intellectually prepare our children. Most teachers are great, but those that have personal agendas that are outside of this must refocus on the academics necessary for our students to succeed.

Q: How do you view your role in confronting policy or curriculum controversies: provide leadership even if unpopular, give a voice to constituents - even ones with whom you disagree, or defer to state authorities?

A: School board members should not make decisions based on their political preferences. I do not believe that is always the case with our current board based on some of their voting records.

Our students' academic success must be our focus. We must methodically look at each consequential decision and use reason and logic for each of these. Not everybody is going to like every decision, but each decision should be made on what provides the greatest total benefit for the students and taxpayers - not which people will scream the loudest if they don't get what they want.

Too often that has been the case with this district. Every parent and taxpayer must be accurately informed of consequential decisions that affect the district and their children. I will push for more transparency by ensuring that all the facts are presented so the constituents can make informed decisions and hold us accountable. Only by knowing the facts can constituents have a voice.

Q: Concerns are growing regarding a new resurgence of the pandemic. If another massive outbreak of infectious disease occurs, what have we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that will guide your decision making?

A: The first thing I hope everybody learned is that every action we take has consequences. Those must all be laid out, so the positives and the negatives can be weighed. The initial outbreak was a horrible situation where many people we know lost loved ones.

The logical initial reaction was to shut everything down until we understood more. As we learned more, however, we should have re-evaluated our decisions and taken all factors into consideration. The most glaring negative consequence was the drastic lifelong impact it had on our students despite the fact that it was known that children were the least susceptible to having major complications. Our children were damaged in incalculable ways in order to protect others because we did not re-evaluate the risks and the negative impacts our actions were causing to both our students and their parents. Taking our students out of school for an extended period must be the last option if an outbreak occurs again.

Q: Describe your experience working in a group setting to determine policy. What is your style in such a setting to reach agreement and manage school district policy? Explain how you think that will be effective in producing effective actions and decisions of your school board.

A: The first thing is to recognize each person has a personal bias to various issues. My first rule on determining policy is to determine what my biases are. I don't believe someone can be unbias until they realize that they have biases and can account for them. After that, it is imperative that we actively listen to ensure that everybody feels they truly have a voice. We must judge each idea solely on the merits of the idea and not on our feelings for the person sharing his or her idea.

Lastly, we must always remember what our goal is. If it is to individually win, we will fail. It must always be what is best for the students and the taxpayers. They are our constituents and who we represent. My logic-based, nonemotional approach to problem solving enables me to reach agreements with people with various different viewpoints.

Q: What makes you the best candidate for the job?

A: My first thought is because I did not want the job. I have 3 kids in the district, but this is the last thing that I ever thought I'd be doing. I admit that I was naive until a year or so ago. I just assumed that the school board acted in the students' and taxpayers' best collective interests. I was wrong. As I started learning more, I was shocked at how politicized our board is.

In many ways it's Chicago politics in our community. I am the best candidate because I don't aspire to be a politician, want to be popular, or want to be the focus of attention. I, however, cannot sit around and complain about what's going on and not be willing to address it. If voters are not satisfied with nearly 6 out of 10 of our students not achieving basic standards and want somebody to hold the district accountable, I am the best candidate for that.

Q: What's one good idea you have to better your district that no one is talking about yet?

A: The district needs to be more transparent and informative to the parents and taxpayers. Our communication, whether it's for good information or bad, must be delivered in an easily consumable way. They deserve to know, in an unbiased fashion, how key decisions affect them and our students. They deserve to see progress reports on key metrics with previous years included. I believe, for example, parents want to know about our poor test results and how we are improving (or not improving) with year over years analyses. We can't run from that. We must give our constituents the information they need to hold us accountable.

The vast majority have no idea what the real issues are or how our schools are performing. We have parents' email addresses. Let's use them to keep them informed of issues that really matter. I'm sure local news organizations would be more than willing to publish an honest assessment for the taxpayers to see.