Community Corner

School Board Candidate Wants to Put Students First

Local resident Amy Luczak vies for open seat on Dexter's Board of Education.

Editor's note: This week Dexter Patch will profile each of the four candidates running for school board May 3. Today we will feature Amy Luczak.

With the May 3 general election a month away, Dexter Patch met up with the four candidates running for the two open seats on the Dexter Community Schools Board of Education. Incumbents Richard Lundy and Julie Schumaker will face opposition from challengers Shawn Letwin and Amy Luczak.

Candidate: Amy Luczak

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Office sought:  Dexter Board of Education trustee

Residence: Dexter

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Occupation: Homemaker

Education: Doctor of Pharmacy, University of Michigan, 1996

Previous elected office: None

Public service: None

Key issues:

1. Keeping children first

I want to help provide a stellar education for our children in a safe and caring environment. First and foremost, I am a parent. Therefore, putting our children’s education, physical and emotional needs, and safety first will always be my priorities. I plan on addressing this as a school board member by always asking myself, “Is this best for kids?” It’s as simple as that.

2. Developing better teamwork.

We must be a team of parents, teachers, staff, administrators, school board members, community members and taxpayers, working together for our children and community. I want to continue to build a community where we nurture what is our own and together find ways to make it an even better place to live, share and raise our families. 
           
We must be vigilant about maintaining our local autonomy. We must be as aggressively local as possible, given the state and federal mandates under which we must operate. We must maintain our ability to put kids first. We must answer locally to parents, the community and taxpayers. 
 
We must defend our parental right to give input into the curriculum. We must not lose our voice to express our concern when curriculum and guidelines are determined by private organizations.
 
We must not make teachers and administrators answer to private organizations about how and what we teach our children in Dexter. We must not add another layer of bureaucracy and busy work for teachers. We must defend our teacher’s independence.
 
We must defend our right as taxpayers to have our money stay in the local community to educate our children. 
 
They say defense wins championships. We must defend our local autonomy so we can put children first. I intend to be a local champion.

How do you plan to address these issues?

I want to partner with parents in curriculum development and help parents maintain their parental rights in the public school system. 

I want to partner with teachers and staff to assure that we are providing the best working conditions possible so that we may continue to recruit and retain wonderful teachers and staff. We need to take care of our teachers and staff so they can take care of our children.

We need to reach out to parents in our community who are not utilizing the public school system to educate their children. We need to understand why they have made this decision and, if possible, address their concerns in ways that encourage them to return.

I want to assure that we are making the best use of resources given the challenges of reduced funding that we face. I want to use tax dollars efficiently and wisely to best benefit all children.

I want to reach out to the community, ask people about their skills and interests and find ways to incorporate their special knowledge and experience into novel lessons for our children. The public school is the heart of our community, and we must together protect, nourish and develop its full potential.


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