The Meet the School Board Candidates forum was presented by the League of Women Voters last night at Crestview Middle School. The seating area was packed with interested constituents and many had to stand. The audience was encouraged to submit written questions for the candidates and many did so. What came to light was that the education and professional differences among the candidates was quite striking: Keith Kinder (elected incumbent): Ph.D. in Education; currently a Professor of Education at Maryville Univ., previous principal of Eureka H.S., and also served as an administrator at Marquette and Lafayette H.S.s Dr Kinder expressed a thorough knowledge of the current hot-topics, the rules/regs of the School Board position, and the important but arcane details of why many things are done in a particular way. He was a straight-speaker and several times indicated his dismay about the poor behavior of the RS for RS group and their candidate for the Board Ms. Tyrrell, going so far as to chastise them on one or two occasions. Matt Doell (elected incumbent): a bachelors degree in engineering followed by an MBA. Mr. Doell is a V.P. at Sachs Electrical Contractors and previously help positions working around the work servicing government (inc. military) installations. Mr. Doell was also a straight-talker and clearly and articulately took his turn at answering the questions posed to the group. He demonstrated good analytical reasoning and presented a calm and thoughtful demeanor, and, like Dr. Kinder, showed a grasp of the Districts finances and plans that illustrated the significant time he has spent preparing for Board meetings. Although Mr. Doell took a much more neutral tone, probably to avoid offending anyone in the audience, it could be discerned that he was also quite unhappy with the behavior of the RS for RS group and their co-founder / candidate Ms. Eileen Tyrrell. Darby Jo Arakelian (appointed incumbent): Ms. Arakelian earned a B.A. and then moved-on to a M.S. in foreign studies, earning the latter at prestigious Georgetown Univ. With an educational background in russian language, communications, and strategic planning, she has been employed as a security analyst for the CIA (am I allowed to say that?!). Ms. Arakelian smoothly answered the questions, but being a recently appointed interim member of the Board, did not have the depth of knowledge presented by Kindler and Doell. But two aspects of Ms. Arakelian were clear from her behavior and choice of responses, and that is that she is trying to get along with everyone and that she is intelligent and confident. From her work history one might also assume that she is a good listener, and all of these attributes would be useful on the Board, where discussions can sometimes turn fractious. Dominique A. Paul: Ms. Paul has a B.A. or business degree (not sure) from Ohio State University and is in the real estate business. Worth mentioning as an aside that her husband is Mayor of Ellisville, having been improperly impeached and reinstated by court order. Ms. Paul, the youngest of the aspirants and the one (I believe) with the shortest period living in the District, came across as a sincere and earnest candidate. She expressed her interest in participating on the Board as emanating from having young children in our schools, and listed an impressive list of other non-profit volunteer organizations where she participates. Editorially speaking, I believe the audience liked Ms. Paul but she also flustered and tongue-tied, stumbling during many of her answers. This may represent her participation in a forum where all the other candidates were older, typically much older (excepting Ms. Arakelian), and where the audience represented a much older cohort. Ms. Eileen Tyrrell: Ms. Tyrrell holds a high school degree from Arizona, where she grew-up. Ms. Tyrrell is most well known as being the co-founder and very vocal spokesperson (until she declared her candidacy for the Board) for an private organization called RSRS, RS for RS, or more accurately, Rockwood Stakeholders for Responsible Solutions, which has led a relentless and frequently malicious series of attacks against the Rockwood School District and its administrators, going so far as to publicly target individual members. Ms. Tyrrell mimed the answers of others to the easy questions and was often inarticulate when answering the more difficult questions, at times including items in her responses that were not pertinent to the the question. In keeping with her style of indiscriminate attacks, in one of her out of context responses she blurted-out a complaint about the level of salary of one of the RSD administrators (I will not repeat the name and salary), an action that drew a disappointing look from Dr. Kinder, who later remarked this pattern of behavior and how inappropriate it was in 2 minute his closing statement. It was apparent that the other four running for the three Board seats were ringing at the thought that Ms. Tyrrell might gain a seat on the Board and bring her disruptive behavior to the Board if elected, introducing an element of the low-brow tear it al down philosophy one equates with the far right wing of the Tea Party conservatives. To this end one of the incumbents, during the closing personal statement, stated that there are four qualified candidates that care for your kids running in this election, clearly referring to Ms. Tyrrell as the not-counted fifth candidate.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 15:13:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015