All three candidates in the Mount Angel School District school board election are running unopposed.
They are: Position 1: Daniel Zene Crowe,
Position 3: Shari Bochsler Riedman,
Position 4: Raymond Frey.
All three are graduates of Kennedy High School. Crowe is running to replace Dick Hoffer, whose term expires June 30. Riedman and Frey are incumbents.
Below are Crowe and Riedman’s responses to a set of questions. Frey did not respond by Our Town‘s press date.
SHARI BOCHSLER RIEDMAN
Education: JFK High School, Mt Angel, BA from Oregon State University.
Occupation: Clackamas County Human Resource / Disability Analyst.
Why are you running for the school board?
I enjoy being involved in our community. With 2 children attending school in Mt. Angel, positively influencing and supporting the school district is a high priority of mine. I am committed to being an engaged, well-informed, and responsive member of the Mt. Angel School Board – with the ultimate goal of improving our schools for all of our children.
What are your top three goals?
First: positive and valuable student experience. We need to weigh every decision by asking how this will best benefit the students. From what I’ve seen so far in my school board experience, each member of the school board shares this goal and is committed to it.
Second: fiscal responsibility. With our tight budgets, it is important to spend our funds in a way to maximize the school experience for our children.
Third: transparency. Directly influencing how taxpayer dollars are spent is a huge responsibility. I strive to understand how and why decisions are made in our district, and work to be responsive when questioned about what’s going on in our schools. Our school board meetings are always open to the public and I encourage anyone who is interested in what’s happening in the district to attend. They are held the 2nd Monday of the month at 6:30 PM. With the construction underway at the high school, the location of the meetings has changed from the high school library. The school’s website can direct people to the right location. Our meeting minutes are also available on the website.
If you were to share with a voter what’s happening with the Mt. Angel School District, what would you say? (For example, construction projects being completed, new testing….)
A huge thank you to our voters for passing the bond measure in 2013. The improvements at the middle school are close to being finished, and the high school project is in the middle of construction with completion scheduled for late August. Work at St. Mary’s will happen soon. The outcome is safer / more secure campuses; buildings that inspire a sense of pride and ownership in students, staff and community members; and facilities that will be less expensive to maintain. It is an exciting time for our schools.
What do you take pride in about the Mount Angel School District?
I am especially proud of the hard work and positive nature of our students and staff throughout the district.
Anything else you would like to add? Thank you to everyone in Mt. Angel School District (tax payers, students, teachers, parents, administrators, staff, fans) for doing your part – the results of our time, energy and money are 3 excellent little schools positively affecting our children.
DANIEL ZENE CROWE
Education: John F. Kennedy High School ’87, West Point ’91, University of Washington Law School ’98, European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, Germany (MBA) ’06.
Occupation: Veteran’s Advocate, head of the Veteran’s Justice Project.
Why are you running for the school board?
Mount Angel gave me the best education and the best start in life any person could have hoped for. A large part of the excellence of our schools has been our tradition of citizen engagement, including service on the school board. This tradition is exemplified by the man who encouraged me to run to follow him: Dick Hoffer. Dick has given 20 years of service to our school board, and we owe him a profound debt of gratitude.
We can all see that our community will only remain special if we sustain the excellence of our school district. Our educators are tremendously dedicated, but they need the support of our community — and our community’s guidance — to help them understand our expectations and to share with them what success looks like. In our system, fiscal responsibility sits primarily on the shoulders of the board members, and I intend to speak for every taxpayer to ensure we prudently allocate limited resources in a cost-effective way.
What are your top three goals?
1. To preserve Mount Angel School District as a destination school district for families already here and for those who are looking for a great educational experience for their children.
2. To ensure we are equipping each individual student to achieve excellence in tomorrow’s workplace and with the character to understand that excellence begins with service.
3. My particular passion is special education, since my daughter Anna has special needs which she has turned into extraordinary successes. Therefore I plan to work closely with our outstanding District Special Education Coordinator, Erica Gordon, to address the absence of a transitional program for our young people with special needs.
If you were to share with a voter what’s happening with the Mt. Angel School District, what would you say? (For example, construction projects being completed, new testing, ….) The issues of race and class and assimilation are things I think we need to discuss more openly. Public education in America has always been a vehicle for assimilating our citizens on the pathway to believing in America. For the past twenty years, our school district has faced demographic challenges as we work hard to integrate students from varied cultures, backgrounds, and educational experiences. These challenges remain unresolved. I see these challenges as an opportunity to deepen the educational experiences of all of our students, to show them that there is great strength in our diversity, to challenge them to challenge each other to achieve great things, and to show our Hispanic students that the America Dream belongs to each and every one of us.
What do you take pride in about the Mount Angel School District?
Our independence. We are surrounded by many larger school districts which necessarily are able to offer a wider variety of electives and special programs, and yet none of them can provide the sense of community and shared purpose which we sometimes take for granted. I grew up with kids of such varying backgrounds — both of ethnicity and of class — and it allowed a very naïve young Lieutenant to lead Soldiers far better than many of my more privileged West Point classmates and continues to inspire me.
Anything else you would like to add? I grew up with many of you. Many of you are cousins or distant relations whom I would need my Mom, Maryanne Crowe, to connect me back to. Some things about Mount Angel never seems to change, and all of our Moms and Dads build something special here for all of us. I aim to build upon the foundations they laid and to update the education our district provides to equip the next generation of children for a world far more hectic and complex than the one in which I grew up.
